7 ms·

When a Simple Blue Light Was the Hot New Anaesthetic in Dentistry

49 points by Hooke 3y ago

mmastrac 3y ago
Is this some sort of self-hypnosis? EDIT: And some searching reveals case studies of people with blue-tinted vision during relaxation exercises... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1318469/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1318469/ EDIT 2: Weirdly down the rabbit-hole from that last article -- Viagra and blue-tinted vision. https://www.livescience.com/viagra-sildenafil-vision-changes.html https://www.livescience.com/viagra-sildenafil-vision-changes... The human brain is a bizarre thing.
- NikkiA 3y ago
  Probably, of the form of 'focus on the light, rather than the pain', it probably works to some degree as most dental work pain, anaesthetic-less, isn't AS terrible as people imagine it will be - it's still bad, just bearable (I've had 2 teeth drilled without anaesthetic)
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    One of the best inventions in modern dentistry is the laser. The last time I had to have work done my dentist used one of those instead of a mechanical drill, it was really great. No novacaine, no pain, very fast. Quick composite filling and I was out of his office in perhaps 20 minutes for the whole visit. The only time he used a mechanical tool was when he was making sure the edges of the composite filling were perfectly flush.
    - duskwuff 3y ago
      > One of the best inventions in modern dentistry is the laser. How about CEREC-type systems? No more alginate molds and long turnarounds; just scan the patient's mouth with a handheld instrument and mill out a ceramic prosthetic in the office.
  - doubled112 3y ago
    The anesthetic doesn't always work for me, and I seem to need a lot if it is going to work. Sometimes I can't be bothered to complain, since I know then we have to jab, and wait, and my face (but not always my tooth) will be numb for a really really long time. I joke that I'm just building up resistance to physical torture, but it's like you describe. Pretty bad, but I just stare off into space and it's over soon.
    - JadeNB 3y ago
      When I had a major cavity filled—I don't remember the details—they essentially gave me as much anesthesia as they safely could, but something about the placement of the teeth or the nerves meant that the operation had to be very close to the nerve. They literally had to ask me if I could at least keep the screaming down to a level that it didn't scare the other patients. I'm very happy for people for whom it's not unbearable, but I think that's not a universal. (My mom was resistant to anesthesia, which dentists generally didn't believe when told, so they'd try to distract her and drill when she wasn't expecting to prove that she was actually numbed. She wasn't, and it hurt so much and she built up so much distrust she simply wouldn't go to the dentist any more.)
- treeman79 3y ago
  Get FL-41 glasses or covers. They are drastically better than blue light glasses. At one point if around phosphorescent, lights, I would get a severe headache in 10 minutes without anything. 20 minutes with bow light glasses, about 4 hours with FL-41.
lambdaloop 3y ago
I don't know, as a neuroscientist this is very confusing. Blue light generally is linked to arousal, as in this study for instance: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32973462/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32973462/ I wonder if there is some paradoxical effect if you put in a lot of blue light you get a decrease in arousal? Perhaps it could also be something like repetition suppression, where there is a lot of activity and arousal initially, but this causes a backlash and you get a relaxing effect? Or maybe it's all just placebo.
- xattt 3y ago
  This would explain why so many people were dazed and confused by the PC tower blue LED craze of the early 2000s.
  - IIsi50MHz 3y ago
    I wouldn't claim dazed or confused for myself, but I _could_ read easily by them on my machines[1]. So I had make sure two were asleep, and the third…well, it thought it should blink a steady 1 Hz while in sleep. That one was also the brightest. There was no setting for the blink, so I had to unplug the LED to sleep. [1] Not that everybody would agree. I've joked that I have Low-Light Vision.
- projektfu 3y ago
  16 candlepower just doesn't seem like a powerful light. That's around 1800 lumens if unfocused. Sometimes I can distract myself with a computer screen and I don't notice chronic pains but I don't think it's the blue light doing it.
goldenkey 3y ago
It's not crank stuff. I hate this common call of the old as "dumb crank shit!" Near-infrared already known to have many beneficial effects, even just through the skin: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7738953/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7738953/ In addition, the brain does get electrical signals straight from the eyes that very much depend on the type of light. Acting as if this is all olden fluff is as dumb as acting as if it is a panacea.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  > I hate this common call of the old as "dumb crank shit!" I prefer it to the calls of the credulous and the scammers. Bleach is also known to have beneficial effects. Should we drink it?
  - goldenkey 3y ago
    https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Extremes https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-... Try actually debating instead of using cheap parlor tricks, as the "the scammers" would.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      He's pointing out that just because near-infrared light on one end of the spectrum may have some beneficial effects on tissue, that it doesn't necessarily follow that using some light of pretty much the opposite color will reliably allow a dentist to yank out your tooth without pain. Equating the two was the big logical fallacy here.
    - me-vs-cat 3y ago
      I challenge you to identify which logical fallacies -- from your own link -- in which you are engaging. Seriously, you railed against this being called "dumb crank shit" -- and I have yet to see where it's actually being called anything close to that.
  - tdeck 3y ago
FounderBurr 3y ago
How many came back to have more teeth extracted under his magic blue light? None I would venture. People were just afraid to tell him his treatment didn’t work. Same as what I see very often today, deference to the point the providers don’t have any real clue if their interventions are effective.
johnvaluk 3y ago
I started refusing local anaesthetic for dental procedures when I was teenager. I discovered the pain of the procedure itself (such as drilling a cavity) was the same, but I was spared the pain of the injection and lingering numbness afterwards. I was happy to leave my appointments alert and pain-free. I imagine any color light or other type of distraction would provide the same results. It's not even a placebo effect, so much as the fact that a lot of these procedures are well within most people's pain tolerance and/or can be over in a minute. I gladly went under general anaesthesia to have my wisdom teeth removed, however.
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  I never had any issues with local anesthesia and usually get some novocaine gel as a local anesthetic prior to the local anesthetic. Maybe it is effective for some while not for others, I have no other explaination. I’d let a dentist drill anything, no matter how small without anesthesia.
  - projektfu 3y ago
    Infiltration techniques depend on the patient and, to some extent, the skill of the dentist. They're most common for single extractions and cavity prep, sometimes endodontics. Nerve block techniques are more effective but also difficult for dentists to do properly, and some dentists have low success rates. There's no way to know a given dentist's success rate, but an oral surgeon has a lot more practice with nerve blocks. Finally, some drugs have a very slow onset and patients aren't given enough time for the effect. You also don't usually get to choose the drug as a patient.
- yojo 3y ago
  I had a cavity filled without local anesthesia as a poor backpacker in Thailand. It hurt. Not as bad as I thought it would, but I’ve never felt the need to turn down local since. I also had my wisdom teeth out under local. The pain was bearable, but it is a much more violent procedure than I would have guessed. Given that general comes with a non-zero risk of death, I’d still do local again on that one. Plus it’s kind of a trip to watch someone wrench a tooth out of your mouth.
WheelsAtLarge 3y ago
Some people can convince themselves that they feel no pain. I am one of those that self deceived myself into thinking that I felt no hip pain for years. Looking back I had ongoing pain yet if you asked me I would say no. I was not lying. I don't understand why but in my mind what I was feeling was not pain. It was just a bother. I suspect that the blue light success stories were convinced that they should have no pain therefore they did not. It's all in the mind.
- JadeNB 3y ago
  "Weaponized placebo" can be a powerful treatment method, though it shouldn't be the only method available.
- aaronbrethorst 3y ago
  Ezra Klein had a fascinating discussion on this topic a few months ago https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/opinion/17eks-ezra-klein-podcast-rachel-zoffness.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/opinion/17eks-ezra-klein-...
bombolo 3y ago
Very interesting that according to the NHS wisdom teeth removal is seen as a last resource procedure https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/wisdom-tooth-removal/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/wisdom-tooth-removal/ while in USA seems to be "we do it to everybody because some of them might actually need it and the money is good"
- me-vs-cat 3y ago
  I kept mine as a teenager, and regretted the problems they later caused until they had to be pulled 20 years later. As that teenager in the USA, my dentist told me it was optional. It wasn't until about 10 years later that the problems started.
  - bombolo 3y ago
    As I wrote in a different comment: I kept mine as a teenager and they're still there and I'm fine.
cafard 3y ago
My wife long ag had the misfortune to have dental work done by a dentist who believed in the analgesic properties of classical music, delivered over headphones. This had no effect on the pain. Marshall McLuhan mentions the technique in one of his books, perhaps The Gutenberg Galaxy, which may be a sign that he never tried it.

49 points by Hooke 3y ago

Is this some sort of self-hypnosis? EDIT: And some searching reveals case studies of people with blue-tinted vision during relaxation exercises... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1318469/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1318469/ EDIT 2: Weirdly down the rabbit-hole from that last article -- Viagra and blue-tinted vision. https://www.livescience.com/viagra-sildenafil-vision-changes.html https://www.livescience.com/viagra-sildenafil-vision-changes... The human brain is a bizarre thing.

NikkiA 3y ago
Probably, of the form of 'focus on the light, rather than the pain', it probably works to some degree as most dental work pain, anaesthetic-less, isn't AS terrible as people imagine it will be - it's still bad, just bearable (I've had 2 teeth drilled without anaesthetic)
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  One of the best inventions in modern dentistry is the laser. The last time I had to have work done my dentist used one of those instead of a mechanical drill, it was really great. No novacaine, no pain, very fast. Quick composite filling and I was out of his office in perhaps 20 minutes for the whole visit. The only time he used a mechanical tool was when he was making sure the edges of the composite filling were perfectly flush.
  - duskwuff 3y ago
    > One of the best inventions in modern dentistry is the laser. How about CEREC-type systems? No more alginate molds and long turnarounds; just scan the patient's mouth with a handheld instrument and mill out a ceramic prosthetic in the office.
- doubled112 3y ago
  The anesthetic doesn't always work for me, and I seem to need a lot if it is going to work. Sometimes I can't be bothered to complain, since I know then we have to jab, and wait, and my face (but not always my tooth) will be numb for a really really long time. I joke that I'm just building up resistance to physical torture, but it's like you describe. Pretty bad, but I just stare off into space and it's over soon.
  - JadeNB 3y ago
    When I had a major cavity filled—I don't remember the details—they essentially gave me as much anesthesia as they safely could, but something about the placement of the teeth or the nerves meant that the operation had to be very close to the nerve. They literally had to ask me if I could at least keep the screaming down to a level that it didn't scare the other patients. I'm very happy for people for whom it's not unbearable, but I think that's not a universal. (My mom was resistant to anesthesia, which dentists generally didn't believe when told, so they'd try to distract her and drill when she wasn't expecting to prove that she was actually numbed. She wasn't, and it hurt so much and she built up so much distrust she simply wouldn't go to the dentist any more.)
treeman79 3y ago
Get FL-41 glasses or covers. They are drastically better than blue light glasses. At one point if around phosphorescent, lights, I would get a severe headache in 10 minutes without anything. 20 minutes with bow light glasses, about 4 hours with FL-41.

lambdaloop 3y ago

I don't know, as a neuroscientist this is very confusing. Blue light generally is linked to arousal, as in this study for instance: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32973462/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32973462/ I wonder if there is some paradoxical effect if you put in a lot of blue light you get a decrease in arousal? Perhaps it could also be something like repetition suppression, where there is a lot of activity and arousal initially, but this causes a backlash and you get a relaxing effect? Or maybe it's all just placebo.

xattt 3y ago
This would explain why so many people were dazed and confused by the PC tower blue LED craze of the early 2000s.
- IIsi50MHz 3y ago
  I wouldn't claim dazed or confused for myself, but I _could_ read easily by them on my machines[1]. So I had make sure two were asleep, and the third…well, it thought it should blink a steady 1 Hz while in sleep. That one was also the brightest. There was no setting for the blink, so I had to unplug the LED to sleep. [1] Not that everybody would agree. I've joked that I have Low-Light Vision.
projektfu 3y ago
16 candlepower just doesn't seem like a powerful light. That's around 1800 lumens if unfocused. Sometimes I can distract myself with a computer screen and I don't notice chronic pains but I don't think it's the blue light doing it.

goldenkey 3y ago

It's not crank stuff. I hate this common call of the old as "dumb crank shit!" Near-infrared already known to have many beneficial effects, even just through the skin: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7738953/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7738953/ In addition, the brain does get electrical signals straight from the eyes that very much depend on the type of light. Acting as if this is all olden fluff is as dumb as acting as if it is a panacea.

pessimizer 3y ago
> I hate this common call of the old as "dumb crank shit!" I prefer it to the calls of the credulous and the scammers. Bleach is also known to have beneficial effects. Should we drink it?
- goldenkey 3y ago
  https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Extremes https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-... Try actually debating instead of using cheap parlor tricks, as the "the scammers" would.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    He's pointing out that just because near-infrared light on one end of the spectrum may have some beneficial effects on tissue, that it doesn't necessarily follow that using some light of pretty much the opposite color will reliably allow a dentist to yank out your tooth without pain. Equating the two was the big logical fallacy here.
  - me-vs-cat 3y ago
    I challenge you to identify which logical fallacies -- from your own link -- in which you are engaging. Seriously, you railed against this being called "dumb crank shit" -- and I have yet to see where it's actually being called anything close to that.
- tdeck 3y ago

FounderBurr 3y ago

How many came back to have more teeth extracted under his magic blue light? None I would venture. People were just afraid to tell him his treatment didn’t work. Same as what I see very often today, deference to the point the providers don’t have any real clue if their interventions are effective.

johnvaluk 3y ago

I started refusing local anaesthetic for dental procedures when I was teenager. I discovered the pain of the procedure itself (such as drilling a cavity) was the same, but I was spared the pain of the injection and lingering numbness afterwards. I was happy to leave my appointments alert and pain-free. I imagine any color light or other type of distraction would provide the same results. It's not even a placebo effect, so much as the fact that a lot of these procedures are well within most people's pain tolerance and/or can be over in a minute. I gladly went under general anaesthesia to have my wisdom teeth removed, however.

lacrimacida 3y ago
I never had any issues with local anesthesia and usually get some novocaine gel as a local anesthetic prior to the local anesthetic. Maybe it is effective for some while not for others, I have no other explaination. I’d let a dentist drill anything, no matter how small without anesthesia.
- projektfu 3y ago
  Infiltration techniques depend on the patient and, to some extent, the skill of the dentist. They're most common for single extractions and cavity prep, sometimes endodontics. Nerve block techniques are more effective but also difficult for dentists to do properly, and some dentists have low success rates. There's no way to know a given dentist's success rate, but an oral surgeon has a lot more practice with nerve blocks. Finally, some drugs have a very slow onset and patients aren't given enough time for the effect. You also don't usually get to choose the drug as a patient.
yojo 3y ago
I had a cavity filled without local anesthesia as a poor backpacker in Thailand. It hurt. Not as bad as I thought it would, but I’ve never felt the need to turn down local since. I also had my wisdom teeth out under local. The pain was bearable, but it is a much more violent procedure than I would have guessed. Given that general comes with a non-zero risk of death, I’d still do local again on that one. Plus it’s kind of a trip to watch someone wrench a tooth out of your mouth.

WheelsAtLarge 3y ago

Some people can convince themselves that they feel no pain. I am one of those that self deceived myself into thinking that I felt no hip pain for years. Looking back I had ongoing pain yet if you asked me I would say no. I was not lying. I don't understand why but in my mind what I was feeling was not pain. It was just a bother. I suspect that the blue light success stories were convinced that they should have no pain therefore they did not. It's all in the mind.

JadeNB 3y ago
"Weaponized placebo" can be a powerful treatment method, though it shouldn't be the only method available.
aaronbrethorst 3y ago
Ezra Klein had a fascinating discussion on this topic a few months ago https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/opinion/17eks-ezra-klein-podcast-rachel-zoffness.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/opinion/17eks-ezra-klein-...

bombolo 3y ago

Very interesting that according to the NHS wisdom teeth removal is seen as a last resource procedure https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/wisdom-tooth-removal/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/wisdom-tooth-removal/ while in USA seems to be "we do it to everybody because some of them might actually need it and the money is good"

me-vs-cat 3y ago
I kept mine as a teenager, and regretted the problems they later caused until they had to be pulled 20 years later. As that teenager in the USA, my dentist told me it was optional. It wasn't until about 10 years later that the problems started.
- bombolo 3y ago
  As I wrote in a different comment: I kept mine as a teenager and they're still there and I'm fine.

cafard 3y ago

My wife long ag had the misfortune to have dental work done by a dentist who believed in the analgesic properties of classical music, delivered over headphones. This had no effect on the pain. Marshall McLuhan mentions the technique in one of his books, perhaps The Gutenberg Galaxy, which may be a sign that he never tried it.