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Needle Free Injections With Microjets
IZ Reloaded writes "Do you hate needles? In the near future, the fear of needles would be a thing of a past. Bioengineering students at the University of California, Berkeley have developed the MicroJet. It uses an electronic actuator that could one day propel vaccinations, insulin or other drugs through the skin of the patient - without the device even touching the skin - with far less pain than a hypodermic needle."
here's one for salen t-company.com/product/PPF/ID/4200/new_prod_full.as p
http://diabetic-supplies.medical-supplies-equipme
Medi-Jector Vision(tm)Needle-Free Insulin Injection System
Accurate delivery of insulin injections from 2-50 units in 1 unit increments. Injector reusable for 3000 injections. No maintenance or cleaning required. Smaller, lighter weight and easier to use than previous models. Contains: injector, carrying case, training video, instruction manual, 2 Needle-Free Syringes (for easy and medium skin penetration) and 1 vial adaptor. Replacement Needle-Free Syringe kits sold separately.
what's amazing here?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
And they've had "needle-less" injectors around for a long while, however the current ones are expensive and rather inaccurate at dosing when compared to needles.
However, I must say I really don't care if they come out with a needle-less injector that works better. It's not the shots themselves that bother me, but rather the constant maintenance that people take for granted. I'd still need to do something. Right now I have a pump, and it's better than doing individual injections, but it's always with me. I'm waiting for the day when I no longer have to worry about this disease any longer because I've been cured.
Hypospray, anyone?
So, will we get Tricorders with these?
I have no tag line
Someone got his blog pointed at slashdot, while I love the subject, its 4 days old, been on blogs for 3 days and a poor cut and paste job from the original Press release.http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/release s/2005/03/16_microjet.shtml :)
Read the press release, its better
And trust me.. It is not exactly pain-free.
While they have not yet started tests on humans, the researchers said the range of the injector is well beyond what would be needed to deliver drugs through human skin.
So for God's sake, ask the nurse to check the settings before she pulls the trigger.
The coolest voice ever.
these have been around for insulin injections for years.. though not manufactored on a large scale.. here's a modern distributor, and here's an article about tests on pigs in sept of 2004 that went well.
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
What happens when some crazy guy with AIDS starts shooting his blood at people and infecting them?
Good point. I really hope there needs be some proximity while 'injecting'. In that case it wouldn't really be different from an HIV patient attacking you with a needle.
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
I was reading an article a few years ago about how they are going to try reducing the surface area with nerves with syringes by putting tiny hair-like fibres along it, similar to a mosquito's proboscis (which can't be felt by most people).
I have yet to see them use that idea, and if you ask me that sounded a lot more cost effective then this does.
For some drugs, like those that should diffuse into the body slowly over time, transdermal diffusion devices already exist right now. A prime example of those is the nicotine patch, and I hear there are patches for diabetes too.
:-)
As for lots of micro-needles vs. one big needle, it might not be all that new: I seem to recall getting some vaccine shot at school when I was a kid, where the nurse used some ring-looking plastic thing she put on her middle finger, with the business end of the device being a small, round "nail-bed" in her palm, and she slammed me on the shoulder with it, which probably accounts for the ugly mark I have there at that spot too
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
hopefully someone will link or replace this article link - it's awful!
"The researchers even joke that the MicroJet injector could be used to make getting tattoos much more bearable."
heh heh heh.... wait.. that's not a funny joke at all.
and the article fails to address the issue that this technology could become so painless that you do not even realize that you are receiving drugs. This becomes very scary.
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It'll probably only work with injections that go into tissue instead of veins. Accuraccy doesn't matter as much with them, so close enough out to be fine. Also, didn't they already do this some years back? I remember seeing pictures of devices that looked uncomfortably like a pneumatic nail gun that could inject medicine through the skin with pressurized air. Is this just a less sinister-looking version, or did the old one have a habit of giving people embolisms or something?
a good page to take a look at is http://www.cdc.gov/nip/dev/jetinject.htm Its the CDC's index to the technology and hasa lot of useful information
Everyone's doing it!
I got vaccinated with an "air gun" back in the day. it hurts, probably as much as a needle. But you can do a whole group of people quickly, 'cause you don't need to change needles.
Jet injectors have been around since 1940. They were designed to inoculate in Africa, but they kept on jamming because of dust and sand. It was tossed aside for a 3 pronged fork-like needle which you just stabbed someone a couple of times, or scratched them to vaccinate them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector
Finally, the last barrier to my upcoming heroin addiction (Fear of needles) has been overcome!
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Found a picture of one. It's not the one I've seen before, but it was used by the US military back in the 70's, called a Pet-o-Jet. There have also been a lot of patents on them going back into the 50's.
Sounds similar to the jetgun the military use to use. Does anyone know the difference?
Well, they're promising "far less pain" with this device.
Once upon a time, I had the misfortune to receive a yellow fever vaccination with one of the military's needleless injectors. It felt like some steroid-pumped baseball player had swung a bat at my shoulder. Nearly as bad as the pain was the gathering anticipation of the pain, as I watched the 200-odd people in line ahead of me get their shots.
Most people dont realize that the needle itself doesnt sting much. Its the medicine. Some medicines when they come into contact with the flesh inside, sting like crazy. Others dont.
-Dracken
NURSE: doctor, you're hitting the bone
DOCTOR: Oh so I am. It does make a lovely scraping sound though.
As long as they are not replacing the cute nurse ...
When I was a kid/teenager, I hated flu/booster shots. Og no like pain, pain bad, no pain.
Then, at the age of 23, I found a lump. It was cancer. While I didn't need chemo, I did get a lot of CT scans requiring an IV with a radiopaque substance (6 in my first year post-surgery) and bloodwork (12 in that same year).
After that, my GP strongly recommended I get a flu shot, as is suggested to anyone who's had cancer. I was a bit nervous (it had been years since I'd had one, partly because I was generally healthy, partly because I didn't like getting jabbed), but I got it anyway. And it didn't hurt. Let me tell you - after a few IVs and bloodwork needles, I can barely feel those flu shot needles anymore! I can't believe I used to be nervous about those damn things.
This year, I got a flu shot as well. And it didn't hurt.
I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis four years ago (at the age of 22). Then, the best treatment available was Avonex, which is given intramuscularly once a week. The needle is about 26 gauge and 1 1/4" long. With that needle, the pain was mostly psychological. There is nothing natural about stabbing yourself with a long, sharp object.
:-)
In fact, up until about a century ago, sharp objects piercing into your body has generally been a detrimental event. It meant that you were being bitten (with poison or germs getting injected past your outer layer defenses) or you were getting punctured by something that would result in an infection. So everything about your physical makeup and your psychology is evolved to consider injections to be a bad thing. In a twist of events, now it turns out that shard objects getting jabbed into your body is mostly a beneficial thing. But it will take a long time for evolution to change our aversion to injections. And with new technologies, it may not even be necessary for that adaptation to occur. I certainly hope this becomes the case in the *very* near future.
The nerves on the surface of your skin tend to cluster. So, the amount of pain related to the actual puncture of the skin varies greatly, depending on whether or not you happen to hit one of those nerve clusters. Sometimes the penetration of the skin would result in a strong pinching sensation; other times, I would not feel anything at all. For the intramuscular injections, it is also possible that you will hit another nerve on your way into the muscle tissue. That usually just results in a reflex reaction (you jump or twitch). The act of the actual injection is painless, since the solution is injected far below the surface pain receptors. But then you tend to get long-term dull pain similar to a charly horse; it's like a blunt end of a stick whacked you in the thigh and you have a nice bruise in your muscle. And $deity help you if you happen to hit your bone with the tip of the needle.
About a year ago, I switched therapies to Rebif, which is given subcutaneously three times a week. The needle is a smaller gauge and is signifianctly shorter (~1.5cm). It is unintuitive, but the subcutaneous injections, even though the needle is shorter and thinner, are much more painful than the IM injections, because the solution is injected just below the surface of the skin, where you have a lot more pain receptors. So it's not the needle really that I worry about. I hardly even feel that any more; it's the stinging sensation from the liquid getting pushed into the subcutaneous tissue just below the skin.
I use a spring-loaded injection contraption that hides the needle from my view entirely; I just hold the casing to my skin and push a button. The spring-loaded plunger pushes the needle in and presses the plunger of the syringe down to inject the medicine. I don't even worry about the needle any more; I worry about the sting with the liquid getting pushed under my skin and the subsequent itchy and burning red blotch that stays in that area for weeks afterward. So in my case, at least, the needle is a non-issue; this needle-less technology is neat, but it will not help with the pain associated with liquid getting pushed under my skin, and it will not help with the site reaction.
Wake me up when they figure out how to effectively administrate interferon-beta with a pill.
*shudder* and if you moved your arm when the "bat" hit your shoulder, the high velocity jet injection would slice your arm like a razor blade. I still have a scar from my first one. Needless to say, I didn't flinch on the next one down the gauntlet.
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
...and neither are most standard injections, when done properly.
I got my German Measles (rubella) vaccination with a pneumatic injector. I think this was in 6th grade, which would have been sometime in 1970-71 for me. I don't really remember it hurting any more or less than a standard hypodermic needle injection (which didn't really bother me much as a kid, anyway), but it was quick, taking maybe 10 minutes, tops, to administer to a class of 30 students. School officials really played up the fact that there was no needle involved, and I think this had the psychological effect of making it much easier on the students who were scared of any type of injection.
I'll admit I'm jumping the gun with my reply here, so I'll need to read a little more to see what the difference is between the old pneumatic injectors and this new-fangled device.
My Human Gets Me Blues.
It was used a lot later than the '70s. I joined the Navy in 1985 and I received a number of innoculations using these. I can't say for certain but organic ram suggests it continued until the mid '90s.
They weren't any less painful than a needle, but they were much quicker and they were foolproof. Literally anybody could use one. You just put it against the arm and pull the trigger.
I believe they were discontinued because of safety reasons. I believe they found out that there was a possibility of microdrops of blood being blasted back out of the skin, and then injected into the next person.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
For some reason, I still have a bright blue dot at the point of one of my vaccinations. Of course, maybe that's just the corner of the GPS/mind-control chip they embedded in me.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Hmmmm. Seems like 1/2 of it is malfunctioning. Stay right there, I'll be right over!
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I never minded a needle being popped in emptied and being subtracted. As mentioned here it seems a good thing to eliminate the need of needles for that. But as the "recipient" it doesn't make much of a difference it seems.
Now, when they bypass the need sticking a needle in one's vein to tap off blood for analys I'll be cheering! That is just so uncomfortable.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Unfortunately, I see nothing in the article that even mentions the issue of scarring, which imho should be a pretty big deal.
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
Ahh, the military.
It's good that they can take any relatively harmless apparatus like that and make it look like it's going to hurt like a some of a gun, and like it was built by the lowest bidder.
Thanks to advances in needles, there are insulin injection methods even for those of us that don't pump that are basically painless.
/.ers don't, but modern insulin needles (at least name-brand ones, if your pharmacy tries to sub in generics you're screwed) are TINY. The Becton Dickinson Ultra-Fine II/III series have almost invisible needles that are short and VERY thin. I rarely ever feel them. (Occasionally I hit a nerve directly - ouch. But most of the time they're not felt at all.)
You probably already know this but many other
Bloodsugar tests are a different story. My fingers are slightly callused from all the pinpricks - There are no real painless and definately no viable noninvasive bloodsugar monitoring techniques. Noninvasive bloodsugar monitoring is probably the second biggest Holy Grail in diabetes research (the biggest being an actual cure). The "alternative site testing" advertised by many modern meter manufacturers is highly overrated. If you read the manual of such meters you'll find that alternative site testing is inaccurate and gives a delayed reading and should not be used in many situations. (Of the 5-6 tests per day I run, only one is in conditions where AST is fine. And for that one test it's not worth changing lancet device heads.)
The thing I want most as a diabetic right now though is not painless/easier insulin injections (my NovoPen Junior with B-D Ultra-Fine III needles is both painless and convenient), or noninvasive testing (fingersticks are annoying but I'm used to it), it's CHEAP diabetes supplies. Bloodsugar meter test strips run on the order of $0.50-$1 per test. Insulin prices are skyrocketing. You're basically screwed unless you have a high-end medical insurance plan, which is TOUGH when you're a grad student.
But eventually, an actual cure would be damned nice.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
back in the end of the 90s about using needle-less injectors to deliver microencapsulated drugs throught the skin. A team of us investigated the prospect, as injecting depot systems with needles causes lots of hold-up/loss in the vial and needle - and overfill is moreexpensive than normal. There was a ton of various injection technology back then, and it isn't like these people have stagnated innovation, especially as high-potency drugs are being investigated - so you need very small injection volumes. Insuling injections always seem to be pushing the market, but it is quickly adapted other places in pharma and biotech.
One Can Never Own Enough Musical Instruments...
As a diabetic, I've tried lots of new gadgets (helps to have a doctor that's rather technologically literate)... and the Medi-Jector was the first device aside from needles that I've tried.
It's definitely NOT painless, but for around 5-10 units of insulin, it's rather "comfortable", but anything above that can be downright painful (more of a blunt pain than a sharp needle stick pain), and has also caused me welts. It's definitely not for injections where there's a lot of fat (stomach)... only for areas like the arms and legs.
IIRC, they stopped using that thing because it had a tendency to pick up bacteria from your skin and ram them inside.
rj
I remember when I was a kid growing up in the Soviet Union, we had yearly tuberculosis tests. Some years they were given not with a syringe but with a device about the size of hand-held bycicle pump: the nurse would "pump" it once, i.e. pull the top half and press it back into the bottom half, this armed some spring which was enough for several shots. The device was placed on the skin but it had no needle, it made a hiss and fired a jet of liquid into the skin. Did not penetrate very far, just under the skin. When I first saw it, it was way cool. But that was about 25 years ago.
Yes. That's ok in the military, where the jet gun is part of the indoctrination into doing exactly as you're told, without question, or you will be in a world of hurt.
But out in the real world, if you tell someone "if you even flinch, you will need stiches" and people will not accept it.
or indeed, an HIV patient attacking you with a gun :)
stay frosty and alert