Pain Mitigation

edited January 2011 in Everything else

An important topic for those of us engaging in or planning on self-implantation, but I've yet to see much information about it. This can be a place to share what anesthetics and analgesics work, where to legally obtain them, and best practice for safe use. As always, take nothing posted by anyone here as professional medical advice, do your own research, etc. I am not a doctor and am merely relaying information I've acquired.

At the most basic is to ice the area before any cutting or piercings. For the hand, you can submerge it in icewater until numbed (with gloves, to make drying easier to get straight to the procedure).

For local anesthetic, I've found a few options- Various numbing creams containing lidocaine or a similar drug at up to 5% concentrations are sold online and OTC in pharmacies. I'm not convinced that they would provide any relief deeper than the surface when cutting/piercing or situating an implant, but they're cheap enough to try with little monetary risk. A few generics websites sell a 2% lignocaine (lidocaine) solution for injection at ~$8 per 30mL, however the sites look shady and unreliable. I'll come back to the injections route in a bit. There's at least one fairly reputable-looking site selling pure lidocaine powder, but it is sold at a minimum quantity of 50g, but you have to buy 1kg ($645.95) at a time, completely unfeasible. If anyone has any information on these options (or ones that work better) please let me know :)

Back to injections- I've already posted this in the neodymium implant thread, but it's relevant here. A bit of information about anesthetizing the hand using a lidocaine solution injection:

Quoted from Essentials of Hand Surgery, 1st Edition, Chapter 6: Anesthesia for Hand Surgery, Ed. Seiler, John Gray, (C) 2002 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Selection of Anesthetic Agent

The most commonly used local anesthetic agents are lidocaine (1% or 2%) solution and bupivacaine (0.25% or 0.5%) solution. Lidocaine is effective quickly but lasts 1.5 to 3 hours. Bupivacaine is effective over 15 to 30 minutes, but lasts 3 to 10 hours. A 50-50 solution of the two agents is effective in combining the benefits of both agents. Solutions with epinephrine should not be used in blocks around the fingers and hand because of its vasoconstrictive effect. The maximum dose of anesthetic agents is lower when given without epinephrine. The maximum dose of lidocaine is 4.5 mg/kg. For adults, the maximum total dose should not exceed 300 mg. The maximum dose of bupivacaine is 2.5 mg/kg. The maximum total dose of bupivacaine should not exceed 175 mg. The addition of 1 mL of sodium bicarbonate solution per 10 mL of anesthetic alkalinizes the solution and decreases discomfort during injection. As with any injection, it is important to aspirate before injecting to avoid an intravascular injection of the agent. Early symptoms of toxicity from an intravascular injection include headache, ringing in the ears, numbness in the tongue and mouth, twitching of facial muscles, and restlessness. As the systemic levels of the agent increase, convulsions can result, followed by respiratory arrest and arrhythmias.

The rest of the chapter discusses nerve locations in the hand and proper injection points and technique for different types of blocks, and references the following source: Ramamurthy S, Hickey R. Anesthesia. In Green DP, Hotchkiss RN, Pederson WC, eds. Operative hand surgery, 4th ed. Churchill Livingstone, New York, 1993, pp. 22–47.

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  • Hi
    This is my first post, so allow me to introduce myself a little, I'm Monochrome, and other than being a programmer I have some other knowledge(such as drugs) and ideas which can be useful to the biohacking community.
    Here's my little very subjective guide to the proven and scrapheap anesthetic substances:

    Local anesthetics:
    1.Lidocaine
    Pros:
    -Proven and safe when administered correctly
    -Short-acting
    Cons:
    -Troubles with access to it in the useful form
    -Dangerous to people having any heart problems
    Talk:
    After watching Lepht presentation, and reading her blog I immediately thought that the biohacking community needs some anesthetics and knowledge how to use them. Then I poked my contacts and after week or two from now I'll get some grams of 99% lidocaine powder and of course test it on my body and share the results.
    But getting powder of this purity can be a problem to some people so the other solution would be getting some liquid lidocaine solution and then strengthening it by evaporating the solvent so it can work nicely without injection - through skin.

    2.Benzocaine
    Similar to lidocaine, and I don't have an access to it in the pure form.

    3.Benzydamine
    Pros:
    -Combo substance: anti-inflammatory substance, antiseptic substance and finally local anesthetic.
    -Very safe and readily available without prescription
    Cons:
    -Readily available but in various forms, pure powder is probably impossible to get.
    I know one of them: an powder for preparing a vagina rinse solution. This powder consists of benzydamine and salt which of course isn't too good for our skins. But huge amount of it can be filtered but there always be some left so using benzydamine when operating and after operation is out of question. But using it before operations could yield to very good pain relief.
    -The vagina rinse powder can not be available in some countries, there you can probably only get some oral rinse and throat tablets which contain many extra things, mostly sweeteners as the benzydamine itself has frakin horrible taste and as a bonus it burns your throat worsely than alcohol.
    Talk:
    Another good candidate for the scrapheap anesthetic purposes, it just needs research which I'm offering to do.

    4.Cocaine - for the sake of completeness
    Pros:
    -Good local anesthetic with vasoconstrictor activity - it decreases bleeding. More on the vasoconstrictor substances later.
    Cons:
    -Illegal, hard to get and cut with various unsafe substances
    -Good risk of addiction if someone will sniff the remains after the operation ;)
    Talk:
    If somebody has access to high quality coke or coke mixed with lidocaine it can be used as and good local anesthetic

    Global anesthetics:
    1.Nitrous Oxide - N2O
    Pros:
    -Cheap and readily available as charges to the whipped cream makers.
    -Very safe and short-acting
    -Can also be used as a nice drug :)
    -Reverse tolerance: the more you inhale it, the less amount of it you need to maintain the effects.
    -Cons:
    -Getting the gas out of the charges without owning a whipped cream makers or other siphon things is a bit problematic, but only a little, it just needs some practice.
    -It isn't very strong according to the sources, when using it I didn't encountered any pain- bringing situation so I can't share some examples from real life.
    -People can have more or less troubles with self-control when being on gas, again some practice is required to know how it works on you.
    Talk:
    If N2O is strong enough to severely reduce the pain during the implantation procedures it can be a good candidate for a first-choice anesthetic to biohackers.
    When I'll use it again I'll try to conduct some tests on the anesthetic power.

    2.Codeine
    Pros:
    -Cheap and readily available as a cough medicine.
    -The mind isn't severely affected
    -Aside from pain relief it gives the user let's say overall happiness - it's an opiate.
    Cons:
    -Huge risk of addiction - opiate, younger sister of morphine, in body it's converted to it.
    -It doesn't work on the first use, the opiate receptors needs to be 'used to it', it takes about two, three doses to do it.

    That's it for today, to be continued :)

  • An idea occurred to me... if one were to put a tourniquet somewhere on his or her arm for long enough and tight enough, it should become completely numb (and immobile) as well as restricting the blood flow significantly. I'm no expert, so someone with more knowledge can provide some insight into the feasibility of this approach, but I know I've woken up with my arm in this condition on several occasions. That being said, I have no idea how unpleasant it is to reach that state.
  • Tourniquet can be very dangerous if applied incorrectly and I doubt that it will block signals from the pain receptors, I haven't found anything about this.

  • I've heard from some people that lidocaine really doesn't work all that well in the fingertips, but I've also heard that some doctors actually use it in the fingertips.  Does anyone know which is correct?
  • It's a big lie that lidocaine doesn't work in the fingertips, why it wouldn't? Here's an excerpt taken from:
    "Principles of pharmacology: the pathophysiologic basis of drug therapy by David E. Golan"
    about using lidocaine in the fingertips:
    "EM is a 24-year-old graduate student in organic chemistry. While working in the lab one evening, he spills a beaker of hydrofluoric acid (HF) in the fume hood. Although he reflexively jerks his hand away, some of the liquid falls on the fingertips of his left hand. Some minutes later, EM feels a stinging pain, which increases in intensity and is followed by a burning, throbbing ache. Realizing the corrosiveness of the aod, EM begins rinsing his hand with water and a magnesium sulfate solution (the magnesium chelates the toxic fluoride ions). He also telephones 911 and is transported to the Emergency Department.

    The resident notes that the acid has penetrated the nail beds of the affected fingers, and that EM is in severe pain. She commends him on his timely and appropriate actions, and decides on treatment with calcium gluconate (another fluoride chelator) to neutralize the remaining HF, in conjunction with a digital nerve block to reduce the pain, Lidocaine without epinephrine is injected into the fingers, followed by calcium gluconate. EM first notices a reliefof the stinging, although the ache takes somewhat longer to fade. By the time his wounds are dressed, he cannot feel any sensation in his fingers. Over the next 2 weeks, EM's wounds heal spontaneously and the pain, now well controlled with ibuprofen, abates. He is able to plunge back into lab work, but his brush with serious injury affects him in an unforeseen way: he begins to contemplate applying to medical school."
  • @Ian: I had to get stitches in my finger once, and the doctor did use lidocaine to numb the finger. Didn't feel anything but pressure as he stitched me up. So yes doctors use it, yes it works on fingers. Properly applied, a person wouldn't feel anything if they installed a magnet... but where's the fun in that :)
  • Does anyone know if I can buy lidocaine in Australia? Seems this country is a bit anal retentive about... everything, so I expect I'd run into difficulties if I went out looking. I guess I'd need to find syringes too.

    Thus far I've been using ice and varying amounts of alcohol, which has worked pretty well :D
  • edited February 2011
    @SixEcho- Syringes can normally be picked up at farm supply stores. I know in the US that lidocaine is by prescription only (whether its for a person or an animal), but you should check your country's laws. Personally, I'm mail ordering from a country with less strict regulations on the drugs I want- and hopefully customs doesn't block the package.

    If you're still having trouble finding either of those, I highly recommend finding a local drug dealer. Purchasing legal drugs illegally is still just as illegal as purchasing illegal drugs. Getting your hands on an 8 ball of the purest coke you can find (easier for new customer than old, believe me) will probably be expensive for anybody so far away from South America... But I'm sure you'll be able to find the local drug of choice a viable compound for crushing and either snorting, smoking or possibly injecting if you understand chemistry.

    Oh, and finally, check to see how your local government views drug use. I know in a lot of areas you can get free, clean needles from groups trying to lower the spread of STIs.
  • @Ffaway Thanks for that. I can't find much info on the net, so I will discreetly check out the local chemist to see if they're able to sell it.

    Unfortunately good coke goes for like $300AU a gram around here, so if I want to eat this week it's out of my range. I could probably score some from a friend a bit cheaper if it comes to that.
  • Okay so the the chemist weren't selling lidocaine in any useful way, so I did go check with the friendly neighbourhood drug dealer. Turns out you were right about them: He said he's able to source pretty much any anaesthetic I could name, and on the cheap as well.
  • DIY Injectable local anaesthetic


    Hello, new member here!

    After some experimentation I have found that a topical salve containing lidokaine (xylocain 5% from astrazeneca, available over the counter, at least in sweden) can be easily dissolved in water and injected under the skin. Results have been somewhat inconsistent but when it works, it usually removes all pain sensations for some 20 - 30 min. As I write this, I have just finished inserting a 2mm Nd into my left ring finger with little to no pain (yet. The next hour will be interesting).

    Obviously, use distilled, or at the very least boiled, water and clean all tools, hands and surfaces with disinfectant. The salve itself does not contain anything that is toxic or irritating either above or under the skin.

    Anyway, just wanted to put this out there if it wasn't already.

  • extract the pure codeine from co-codamol?
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