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Ultrasound can push vaccines into the body without needles (www.newscientist.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Vaccines can be delivered through the skin using ultrasound. This method doesn’t damage the skin and eliminates the need for painful needles. To create a needle-free vaccine, Darcy Dunn-Lawless at the University of Oxford and his colleagues mixed vaccine molecules with tiny, cup-shaped proteins. They then applied liquid mixture to the skin of mice and exposed it to ultrasound – like that used for sonograms – for about a minute and a half.

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[–] 114 points 2 years ago (14 children)

I think that's the basic premise of the Star Trek hypospray. Pressure pushing in medicine rather than a needle.

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  • [–] 81 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Actual hyposprays have been around since the 60's. They are, by all account, quite painful and ironically not very hygienic.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector

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  • [–] 29 points 2 years ago

    My favorite anecdote, though not necessarily mine, about jet inoculation comes from the army. They had long lines of men to immunize and little time to do it. Walk up, hold still, hear the click, feel the water pierce you, walk away sore. However, if anyone moved even slightly during the process, the needle of water becomes a knife, slicing their shoulder open. It was not a well thought out mechanism.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    A lot slower, though. Article says it takes a minute and a half.

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  • [–] 42 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    It takes my kid half an hour of screaming and throwing a public fit just to get within two miles of a needle, so I'll take it.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Fwiw, my kid who was like that still hates needles, she just has better ways of coping now. The other kid likes to watch it go in, doesn't bother her a bit.

    Both get an ice cream cone on the way home.

    Of course being clenched up with fear makes it more painful too, so at some point not in the middle of the screaming, make sure they know to try to relax that arm muscle even if the rest of their body is rigid with fear. And to remember it's going to take maybe 10 seconds so don't pull away. (It will take less, but kids count fast)

    It's too bad we can't let them do it themselves, it might make it easier.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Also tell the person administering it to do it slowly. In my experience, most of the pain was from them doing it too fast. Something about the fluid stretching the muscle in painful ways before it can spread out, or something.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    That tracks with my experience. I'm shot-tolerant, so I have the calmness to observe. Of course, some are also just inherently more irritating/painful than others, and there's different volumes of liquid as well.

    For instance, if you're shot-averse, get Pfizer Covid rather than Moderna Covid. It's ⅓ of the size/dose.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Also consider the people who have needle phobias. My heart starts to race before getting a vaccine. If I have to give a blood sample I will faint.

    I’m getting woozy talking about this.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    That's weird. My heartrate and blood pressure go down before getting a shot.

    Then I go down, and feel like death for a day and like I'm in rehab for a week.

    Funny thing, I'm not really getting woozy talking about it (a little, but more sympathetic memory of it).

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