We’ve decided to ask clients to road test new clinical products, so we can impartially point out their pros and cons to Update readers.
First up is the Vibraject local anaesthetic system from General Medical. Sadly it does not receive a favourable review…
The reviewer this week is Dr Misbah Junaid, charming owner of Platinum Dental Care, a cosmetic dentistry and facial aesthetics practice in Canary Wharf, London (www.platinumdentalcare.co.uk).
The Vibraject is designed to ease injections
Here’s what she had to say:
This product attaches onto your anaesthetic syringe and vibrates to make injections feel less painful. The vibrations are also intended to work as a distraction technique for nervous patients.
I used the Vibraject on three patients and I’m afraid the effect was not nice – the vibrations were just too strong. Patients really did not like the sound of the device and although my accuracy was still fine, the Vibraject was quite heavy and made my task more difficult.
It really affects your technique and forces you to push the syringe down slower, which means it takes the patient longer to be treated.
The Vibraject doesn’t appear to be suitable for all syringes. With my standard local anaesthetic cartridges it flapped around a bit.
I hadn’t used an attachment like this before, although I have tried The Wand, which is quite a bulky all-in-one unit that vibrates. After a while the Wand is fine to use as it’s light and uses fine vibrations.
You could never use the Vibraject on a child and although the vibration technique can benefit nervous patients, I don’t have a problem with regular needles.