Jabbing a steel needle into your flesh is not ever going to be fun, per se, but scientists have found a way to make it at least hurt a lot less. The trick is actually fooling your nerve cells with a small device that applies pressure and vibration. Here’s how it works.
Popular Science reports on a study presented at this week’s meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. The 21 volunteers in the study were poked in the shoulder while various amounts of heat, cold, pressure, and vibration were applied. (One caveat, they were jabbed with a plastic needle that doesn’t puncture the skin but causes needle-like pain because, well, ethical research standards.) The researchers found that a certain amount of pressure and vibration applied for 20 seconds before the jabbing was the most effective.
via Gizmodo
