|
|
|
|
HOLLENBECK: On being a redhead |
|
|
Monday, 28 January 2008 |
 It can be a pain to be a redhead. There’s more truth to those words than you might imagine.
I’ve always known that I have a great sensitivity to pain, although I’ve learned to adjust to it. I don’t fall out and say “I can’t go because I’m hurting ...” I just take whatever I need to take for what ails me and follow through with whatever was planned. Life’s too short to miss the good parts.
But recently the medical world at large has started paying attention to the fact that we redheads feel pain more than our blond and brunet sisters and brothers.
Tommy Smith, a retired nurse anesthetist and longtime friend, told me years ago that one of the first things he was taught in anesthesiology training was to throw out the rules if your patient is a redhead.
Apparently, the hair color is more than skin deep.
Now the tests have proven it. Redheads do feel more pain. And when it comes to surgery and it’s time to be put to sleep, it takes more of the slumber-inducing drug.
I shared this with Courier editor Whit Jones, who didn’t doubt my words, but was more than a little surprised. He, like many, had never heard of what, for lack of a better word, I’ll call a phenomenon.
Maybe it goes along with the redhead complexion which, most of the time, is fair, often freckly. We’re usually thin-skinned and we don’t tan. Sun can be our worst enemy.
I learned this the hard way as a kid. It took literally being sick again and again and again for me to accept this and do my darndest to avoid it.
I would go to the pool or lake or beach with my friends and try to be unconcerned about what I knew was happening to me or about to happen. The cavalier approach wasn’t wise. My skin wouldn’t turn just pink or peachy; it would cook. Nay, it would blister. Literally.
There were times when I sunburned so badly that I had to retreat to my room and lie on my bed in front of the air conditioner, wearing short shorts and nothing at the top but cotton cloths doused in Foille. (Foille was my mother’s treatment of choice for my condition.) I didn’t argue with Mamma because I was suffering. I couldn’t stand any clothing touching my back, arms, shoulders or legs for a couple of days.
It took growing up before I concluded that nothing that I could avoid was worth having to endure this kind of misery for, so I gave up events that took me to poolside and lakeside venues. Except for marrying my spouse, it probably was the smartest decision I’ve ever made.
But the surgery/anesthesia issue is another matter.
Many years ago, my husband, who had heard Tommy Smith espouse the idiosyncrasy hypothesis about redheads, asked my then-ENT doctor, Tom Smith (no relation to the medical sandman with the same name), if he believed Tommy’s theory.
“Absolutely,” Dr. Tom said. “I’ve learned that if my patient is a redhead, just watch out!”
In fact, when my son, Allen, as a 9-year-old, was about to undergo surgery to remove a vocal polyp, Tom cautioned the anesthesiologist to “watch him closely. He’s the son of a redhead and he’s nearly one.”
A 2002 study conducted by researchers at the University of Louisville in Kentucky reportedly proved what anesthesiologists have been saying — that redheads are more difficult to knock out.
Researchers reportedly chose 20 test subjects — all women ages 19 to 40. Ten were redheads; the other 10 were brunettes. The dark-haired subjects were in the control group.
The researchers chose only women to cut out any possibility of gender playing a role in the study. They also chose women whose monthly cycles were in sync, since increases in hormones can also play a role in susceptibility to anesthesia. (That’s giving out a little more information that might be necessary, but that’s what the Internet account said.)
All 20 women were given desflurane, a common gas anesthesia. After the anesthesia took effect, the researchers gave each woman electric shocks, using a voltage that a conscious person would have found intolerable. If movement was detected in response to the pain of the shocks, the level of anesthesia was increased until no further movement was detected with subsequent shocks.
The researchers’ findings showed that the anesthesiologists’ adage is indeed true: Redheads do require more anesthesia. In fact, it took an average of 20 percent more.
Anesthesiologists have a dangerous job, anyway, and it takes a large degree of skill to properly put someone under. Too little and you have a patient who may wake up as a result of the pain from the surgery. Patients also may be able to recall the surgery when they awaken. Conversely, too much and the patient may overdose, slip into a coma or even die. Not what you’re aiming for.
So while the experiment may sound cruel, it provided anesthesiologists with useful information to treat their redheaded patients. The discomfort endured by the redheads in the test may result in less pain for millions of other redheads who must undergo surgery.
And speaking as a representative of the titian-haired flock, I say a hearty “thank you.”
This characteristic isn’t found only in redheaded women, however. A later study showed that redheaded men and women alike require more anesthesia than their counterparts.
Doctors believe that the genes that are responsible for red hair also have a role in managing pain.
So, as editor Jones said, when the redheads are ready to go under, “just turn up the juice.”
The researchers reportedly have theorized that certain genes linked with red hair may activate a feedback system in the brain that confers resistance to sedation. So if you’re a redhead and you’ve dyed your hair blond or brunet and are about to have an operation, you may want to mention that cosmetic alteration to your anesthesiologist.
Also, if you’re a dyed redhead and slated for surgery, it would be wise to share that fact. Remember, there can be too much of a good thing.
Sleeping well is good if it’s just not a permanent condition.
Lynda Hollenbeck is associate editor of the Courier.
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
|
|
|
Razorbacks