When recently I had a gout attack and my knee was inop, my doctor suggested a large injection of something, probably cortisone. Big needle, big syringe. Before she inserted it, she backed off a foot or so and sprayed the area with something. I never felt the needle go in and felt only the pressure of the injection--no problem.

If they can do that, why don't they use that spray when inserting IVs and drawing blood? I've had IVs hit a valve in the back of my hand and the pain was memorable.

As a vet, I am not needle shy, having had hundreds of sticks, but why not make them painless if you can?


Tim

Cost? Convenience? Contamination?

It's some more of numbing agent obviously.

I used to have plantar fascitis. But it was a toss up between the pain of the planta or the pain of the needle going in through the bottom of my foot.

Went to a second doctor, who first sprayed my sole then added morphine at the tip of the needle so she would push out morphine as the needle would go in. It was so much less pain from the injection. I wanted so much to go back to the first doctor and slap him upside the head.

I abhor needles. I was diagnosed for carpal tunnel 10 years or so ago. Doc told me it was moderate and would need surgery at some point in the future but for now we will just give you cortisone shots. I said you just told me it would require surgery eventually so we will just do that now and you can keep the needles and cortisone for yourself.

He just looked at me for a second and then said sure, ok. You have to be your own advocate in these situations.
I had the planter facitists too and cured it with decent insole inserts in my shoes. Took a couple months of constant wear but it went away.

My doc told me I was fat and needed to quit eating steaks and drinking scotch, he also said to stop smoking cigars if I wanted to live longer.

I told him I wanted a second opinion, He said, ok "you're ugly too..."


Maybe I need a new doc...


As to the spray, I just had an ingrown nail fixed, the doc did the same thing, sprayed it with some spray, that numbed it topically then they stuck the big toe all around with a needle and some more numbing was done.

Worked great, although for a couple of weeks after my skin looked really red and the top layers peeled, other than that it was great.

Sadism.

I had the same, it's cortisone. You're sure they sprayed something? Doc just pinched my but before she stuck the needle in. She said there's not many nerve endings in the butt and the needle won't hurt.

She was crazy. While I was there she looked at my hand and saw a cyst so she popped it with a phone book.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chowser:
I had the same, it's cortisone. You're sure they sprayed something? Doc just pinched my but before she stuck the needle in. She said there's not many nerve endings in the butt and the needle won't hurt.

Yeah right. I have a different tale (no pun intended) that involves a doctor's visit for allergy, steroid injection in the butt cheek, 787 pounds of Harley in the parking lot of said office and a 32 mile ride home. Yep, first injection of a steroid ever. And the PA never said anything about subsequent pain until she had injected me. And yes, my helmet was on the exam table next to me when she came in.

You might be looking for Ethyl chloride. I believe this is the same stuff the PA used for when I received a cortisone shot in my knees. It may also be the same stuff they shot in my foot between my toes for plantar fasciitis. Your local medical supply place probably has some. It may not be the same strength as what the doctors office uses.

Wife nagged me to get a flu shot.
Went to CVS. Really good looking young girl doing it. I asked her if she wanted me to drop my pants. She stabbed that baby in my arm so hard I was black and blue and in pain for a week. Wife said it served me right. No spray on that one.

Wonder what it is too, and why it's not used more often.

Orthopedic doc gave me a cortisone shot in my ankle last year, 3" needle, all the way in...misted the area first with the magic fu-fu juice and I didn't feel a thing.

Podiatrist later in the year wanted to do another cortisone shot, guided by ultrasound...no fu-fu juice this time...told me I might feel a little prick. My ass! Damn near kicked him with my good foot when it hit.

quote:

Originally posted by mike56:
Wife nagged me to get a flu shot.
Went to CVS. Really good looking young girl doing it. I asked her if she wanted me to drop my pants. She stabbed that baby in my arm so hard I was black and blue and in pain for a week. Wife said it served me right. No spray on that one.

You are lucky, she could have changed it to a marinade injector.

quote:

Originally posted by C-Dubs:
Wonder what it is too, and why it's not used more often.
....

Ethyl Chloride

I suspect that you received ethyl chloride....and , yes it can be used for IVs and blood draws... It's old as the hills. i found a reference to it in an anesthesia textbook for the 1940s.


We use it for IVs....I suspect that the reason it isn't used more is due to new folks not being aware of it. It can't cost that much...our pharmacist doesn't bitch when we want more..

quote:

Originally posted by mike56:
Wife nagged me to get a flu shot.
Went to CVS. Really good looking young girl doing it. I asked her if she wanted me to drop my pants. She stabbed that baby in my arm so hard I was black and blue and in pain for a week. Wife said it served me right. No spray on that one.

That reminds me of the time a Navy boot recruit made a big fuss over the massive shot in the ass. It took a couple of apes to bend him over. The 'doc' tapped the end of the needle on the table to dull it sufficiently to get a pretty good scream out of the boot going in and coming out.
Mike

We started using a local independent pharmacy (side note: save a huge amount of money compared to Kroger but that is a whole other story) and I got my Hep A shot done there and they sprays my arm with some numbing spray and I felt a lick of nothing with that shot. I am 35 and have been poked a bunch and have never had this before and I wondered why no one else uses it specially on kids.

The only time I ever got that was for cortisone shot on the shoulder probably because they go deep. I never had it otherwise. Last flu shot I barely felt and needle was really short and put a dab of something on the spot with cotton swab, maybe alcohol.

Couple months ago I had CT guided needle biopsy of liver. Not sure what they used but that went extremely deep and I did not feel much but I did have something via IV including mild sedation but I was awake and something swabbed on the spots where needles went in.

Shit, where was that stuff when I was getting allergy shots? For several years, finally stopping in my mid teens, I got one in each arm every week, then tapering off to every two, then every three weeks. One particular nurse was a little more skilled than the others and injections administered by her were less painful than the others. Shit. At least, over 40 years later, I don't have any serious allergies. Nor excessive fear of needles, although I did balk a little at first at having to give them to myself for a time while laid up.

quote:

Originally posted by Chowser:
She was crazy. While I was there she looked at my hand and saw a cyst so she popped it with a phone book.

That's not crazy, just old school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganglion_cyst

quote:

A ganglion cyst is a fluid filled lump associated with a joint or tendon sheath.
...
A historical method of treatment for a ganglion cyst was to strike the lump with a large and heavy book, causing the cyst to rupture and drain into the surrounding tissues. Historically, a Bible was the largest or only book in any given household, and was employed for this treatment. This led to the former nickname of "Bible bumps" or "Gideon's disease" for these cysts.

I treated one of those myself, inadvertently. I had a small one on the top of my big toe knuckle, but I ignored it since it didn't cause any pain or other issues. Then I accidentally dropped the vacuum cleaner on that toe on day, and it disappeared.

There’s a few different sprays. One is called pain-Ease and it’s basically compressed air. You basically make the area so cold it goes numb. Not great for IV’s as the cold obscures veins. We use it a lot for Children. Another spray is ethyl chloride spray. It has similar results. Both are expensive and annoying to use and again we typically only use it in children. In school we drilled intraosseous needles into our tibia bones for practice without any anesthetic. I’ve seen military medic units practice with the interosseous sternal needle which is basically a big thumb tack you just push into the sternum. That’s really gotta hurt. My advice is to suck it up