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Nifty gaming gadget administers nitrous oxide to kids

Mark Frauenfelder at 12:55 pm Tue, Apr 21, 2009

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Picture 9-1

I imagine a lot of grown ups will want this, too.

PediSedate is a medical device consisting of a colorful, toy-like headset that connects to a game component such as the Nintendo Game Boy system or a portable CD player. Once the child places it on his or her head and swings the snorkel down from its resting place atop the head, PediSedate transparently monitors respiratory function and distributes nitrous oxide, an anesthetic gas. The child comfortably becomes sedated while playing with a Nintendo Game Boy system or listening to music. This dramatically improves the hospital or dental experience for the child, parents and healthcare providers.
PediSedate (via MedGadget)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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  • IWood

    Is this forever?

  • Ambiguity

    I so want one of these.

    My nine-year old is always bugging us to let him get a WII (we’re kind of against video games), but if I could get it with one of these, it would be a no brainer!

  • Takuan

    why…yes…it is…..

  • Tiggy

    This device may finally convince me to go for that wisdom tooth extraction. Hope the adult version comes out before the decay hits my root…

  • IWood

    masdfah h;;;1

    sd

  • Anonymous

    You’d think they’d market this thing for use with a DS since it’s just a pair of headphones attached to a gasser…

  • pinehead

    Hook it up to a CD player and let the kid listen to Simon & Garfunkel sing “Bright Eyes.”

  • Jaycatt

    I think the only people who prefer it without drugs are folks like Bill Murray’s character in Little Shop of Horrors.

    As a kid, I was given nitrous most of the time, but not since I was 12 or so.

    However, I recently had to have it, and it really did help. It’s tough to numb my lower jaw, but I needed a filling. Eight shots and 45 minutes later, I still wasn’t numb, and was extremely jumpy at the thought of them still working on a tooth which felt pain as if no anesthetic had been given at all. They had given me the “maximum allowable dosage” of anesthetic shots, so they suggested the nitrous. Insurance didn’t cover it, of course, and I could still feel the pain, but I rode through it and was able to focus on other things until it was over.

    So, I still think it’s good to have around, but I also wouldn’t give it to kids in a “fun” way. It’s medicine; don’t candy-coat it or it confuses them.

  • Tdawwg

    Wow, like Humphry Davy in his later years, only for kids!

    From one of Davy’s nitrous poems:

    Not in the ideal dreams of wild desire
    Have I beheld a rapture-wakening form:
    My bosom burns with no unhallow’d fire,
    Yet is my cheek with rosy blushes warm;
    Yet are my eyes with sparkling lustre fill’d;
    Yet is my mouth replete with murmuring sound;
    Yet are my limbs with inward transport fill’d;
    And clad with new-born mightiness around.

    Top that, post-millennial nitrous-addict children!

  • Ratdog

    When are these coming out?

  • doktor tchock

    i want that, but i want to to only distribute the nitrous if you’re beating the game. hone game skills, get high. the process gets harder as you do better.

  • Anonymous

    Is this how David After Dentist happens?

  • tensor

    @#5 lol PediSedate …

    If it weren’t for that pedophile-associated imbecile name, i’d like one in adult size … for err, let’s call it testing yes testing.

    @#12

    Specially considering NO2 is hardly used outside the US in dentists office. I mean everyone knows USAns are pansies (/me ducks), but still…

  • f sharp a sharp infinity

    You have 2 fingers.

  • WalterBillington

    My wife just gave birth, and was more irritated by the nitrous than assisted. I’ve never tried it.

    But I have some tips: Don’t eat sugary things, and if you do, brush your teeth soon afterwards. Don’t grind your teeth, and if you do, wear a rubber mouthguard thing (besides, they’re sexy). Feel happy around needles – they’re fun. In the right hands. And chill out.

    My dental deal is this: I’ll put up with anything, but if you fail to suck out the gagging spit, I’m comin’ for ya.

    But this THING! Paedobare. Jesus, in excelsior. I’m not pleased – this goes with Obecalp pills.

  • DBinNYC

    When I was a kid, I was more afraid of the needle, and he didnt offer gas, so I sat on my hands and had many teeth drilled.

    Yeah, his name was Zell, but that didnt come into realization til 20 years later.

    Yer all a buncha pansies…

  • JimXugle

    when I was a little kid, this would have scared the shit out of me anyway.

  • joe blough

    @58 you have no idea how they are using this. they are not using it to put the kids all the way under. they give a very low dose continuously. they put a “clown nose” mask over the kids nose and crack the valve a tiny bit. the kid never loses conciousness. this is not done by a doctor but by one of the doctor’s assistants.

    seriously, its a racket. and they don’t do this just for “surgical” procedures. my kids dentist wants to do it just for filling cavities. and they try to make you feel like a bad parent for not using it. this headset is for the same purpose – continuous low dose. its a crutch for the doctors, and they know it.

  • Blaine

    Has to be done…

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  • Ratdog

    Really is a bad name. Yeah, this will also show up on failbog.

  • dargaud

    Until the last line, I was convinced this was for home use with noisy kids… C:-|

    For Keeper, why press a button ? It’s a lot of work. Just have a microphone trigger the gas when it gets above a certain noise level, just like anti-barking dog collars.

  • Anonymous

    Watch for future game ‘addicts’ who need to play games to sleep.

    Also, curiously — in Ontario Canada, serious dental surgery such as complex wisdom teeth removal is done under general anesthetic, like any other surgery. This is bad news if anesthesia makes you puke right after.

  • Axx

    Uh oh. Website assplode!!!

    I think PediSedate is having some server difficulties. This is, obviously, no laughing matter.

  • josephlrc

    @23 and I thought we were getting/maintaining the reputation as the bullies who shoot first and ask questions never….

  • DWittSF

    Kids get all the cool toys these days.

  • Anonymous

    wow, and to think my mom just read an entertaining book to me while the dentist worked on my teeth…

  • igpajo

    I had several teeth pulled back in the 70′s as an alternative to getting braces and they never had to trick me to do the funny gas. I actually had a couple out of body experiences.
    My son though has panicked a bit before. The last time they told him they were going to play a game and see how far up the tube he could blow the little ball. He lasted two puffs.

  • apoxia

    I question the need for nitrous at all. When I got two wisdom teeth pulled last year I asked about nitrous and my dentist said he got rid of the tanks years ago and doesn’t think anyone is using it(at least in New Zealand). I’m glad there wasn’t any, I got a local anaesthetic and he pulled out my teeth in less than 3 minutes and I was up and walking about straight after.

  • Lauren O

    Is this real life?

  • dagfooyo

    It’d be even cooler if it released more N2O based on how you did in the game. Then it’d be like those gamesets in that one episode of Star Trek TNG.

    Also, somebody’s gotta pick up 10 of these and a bunch of consoles and start a pedisedate theme camp at Burning Man.

  • Anonymous

    I can’t believe nobody has mentioned the creepiness of the photo with the dentist/pusher hanging out on pillows with the kid, being a “cool pal” waiting for him to relax.. Maybe a dental chair would be more conducive to doing actual dental work? And now, a very special episode of “Doctor Feeliebottom, Pediatric Dentist”..

  • bcsizemo

    Amazing how the random assortment of interwebs come together…

    Boingboing meet 4chan…

    Pedobear seal of approval eh?

  • Itsumishi

    I question the need for nitrous at all. When I got two wisdom teeth pulled last year I asked about nitrous and my dentist said he got rid of the tanks years ago and doesn’t think anyone is using it(at least in New Zealand). I’m glad there wasn’t any, I got a local anaesthetic and he pulled out my teeth in less than 3 minutes and I was up and walking about straight after.

    There are many things wrong with this statement. Firstly, if you’d had the gas you’d still be walking out minutes later. The effects usually wear off within about a minute or two after the administration of the gas is turned off. Secondly there’s no way any dentist removed 2 wisdom teeth in minutes. Thirdly plenty of dentists still use Nitrous in New Zealand and even more people that use the stuff recreationally.

    Specially considering NO2 is hardly used outside the US in dentists office. I mean everyone knows USAns are pansies (/me ducks), but still..

    Source? As far as I can tell it’s still used in hell of a lot of the world. Especially for kids as it’s less scary and more calming then anaesthetics.

  • Antinous / Moderator

    Or he looks like a nice guy whose patients probably like him because he has some interpersonal skills.

  • stegodon

    Ok, I’ll concede that there is a definite creepiness factor involved in strapping this thing to a child’s head, but let’s not throw out the design altogether… I would kill for one of these things on trans-Atlantic flights. Fire down a couple Xanax, a vodka tonic, strap this bad boy on and fire up Dark Side of the Moon.. wake me up in Reyjakvik… homey.

  • mlw99

    @15 Takuan

    Now it can be Second Life all the time.

  • Steve Stair

    Am I the only one that when I saw that it connected to a Game Boy, thought, “Does it give you the nitrous when you lose the game, or when you win?”

  • Anonymous

    I feel funny…

  • Stuart Ellis

    Why is it that the first thing that pops into my head when I see this is Frank Booth from “Blue Velvet”?

  • nutbastard

    want. how much? and how much nitrous comes with it?

  • freshacconci

    If the Dead still toured, the N2O vans would come standard with these.

  • Halloween Jack

    mmm, soma!

  • thivai

    The video from the PediSedate site is pretty sweet, especially the “trippy”effects when the kid is stoned:
    http://www.girostudio.com/client/Pedisedate/Pedisedate.wmv

  • Anonymous

    I’ll take eight!

  • Anonymous

    Seriously guys, I can’t be the only one who saw the resemblance.

    http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/7005/awesomenitrous.png

  • Anonymous

    The Dead are touring.

  • Anonymous

    Super flammable Nitrous Oxide + Electronic sparkly headphone = WIN

  • cinemajay

    @8, nothing to see here, move along.

    @9, Yes. No anesthetic at all. Child abuse–that’s what I’m in favor of.

    Seriously though, I’m against using any type of painkiller. What I don’t get is why it needs to be coupled with games and fun and lollypops. I suppose little kids can make doing a serious procedure more difficult, but it just seems odd that we’re pampering kids for everything these days.

    /harumpf. ;)

  • Anonymous

    I’m sure they think this invention is a gas, but it is no laughing matter.

  • Jake0748

    Nitrous oxide is not flammable.

  • Ratdog

    The dentist is like “no, you have to go DOWN, not up. Here let me play, and give me the headset.”

  • Anonymous

    I want one for myself…

  • schant

    Best thing of all…the logo/slogan “Distraction, Comfort, Sedation.” Words we can all live by.

  • Takuan

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide

  • Anonymous

    hahahah i was waiting for someone to reference pedobear! OH MANZ!

  • Jasonclock

    “PediSedate”. Now, really.

  • GregLondon

    nitrous doesn’t do much for me.

  • Anonymous

    My favorite part of their site (emphasis, mine):

    “The result is a system that provides a calming influence over the children, monitors the child continuously, allows the procedure to be performed by less skilled personnel, increases the speed with which procedures can be performed…”

    I hear this every time I read it:

    “Hey, don’t worry, lady. See? This blue ‘ting makes it so Jimmy there can wack out a coupla’ you kid’s teeth… and he don’t even need to be a dentist or nothin’. Save ya’ a coupla’ bucks, and you kid gets to play some a’ the Game Boy first. It’ll be over before you knows it.”

  • emmaw

    I had typical dental work done without Novocaine as a kid with no problems. This is apparently for heavier work.

  • cinemajay

    Is it a good thing to make things ‘pleasant’ for kids? I understand mitigating suffering, but lulling them into a state of doped up zombitude seems a little extreme.

    Life is hard. Going to the dentist sucks. Kids need to grow up and learn that not everything comes with a toy.

  • Anonymous

    #33

    Two wisdom teeth extracted in 3 minutes? Whatever that dentist charged wasn’t as much as he deserved. Seriously spread the word about that guy.

    A divine miracle couldn’t get wisdom teeth out of someone’s head quickly or easily. It’s such a fiddly procedure (the back teeth are nigh on cemented to your skull and ironically, right where it’s hard to get to)

  • jimh

    @cinemajay: Dad, is that you?

  • eustace

    My experience of dental nitrous was as an anxiety palliative, not a painkiller. I abhor needles, and the typical procedure for novocaine is many deep sustained injections. The prospect of this used to unnerve me considerably (I eventually overcame this by volunteering to give blood; with time the process became much less stressful).
    I would search out dentists who still had their tanks, then ask for the nitrous to make the novocaine injections bearable. This worked pretty well for many years, but it wasn’t really sustainable in a land where insurance companies call the shots.
    My sympathies are with the kids – let them have gas! As anaesthesia goes, it’s pretty on/off – a couple of seconds after removing the mask (and taking a few deep breaths of plain air) the effect disappears – or that has been my experience.

  • presterjohn

    There is an adult version of this. It is called cable TV.

  • Anonymous

    My first thought was, Great! train the kid a associate the games with falling asleep, and waking up in pain.
    @joe bough, that $50 pays for someone with more specialized training than most docs. Almost anyone can use Nox to relieve pain, but it takes a lot more know how to put someone under without them ending up 6 feet under. lots of places don’t use it as it can be very hazardous, one minute fine, the next dead, and a dentists office is a bad place to deal with a cardiac arrest.

  • Jerril

    #56: Regarding the “less skilled” – I was reading it as “lacking in the skills to make a hysterical 6 year old calm down” but you’ve put a totally creepy spin on it.

    Now I’ve got Goodfellas in surgical masks flashing through my head whenever I read that.

    Thanks. :P

  • Jerril

    #7: so you’re in favor of surgery without anasthetic, then? Say, to get your tonsils out, or an infected appendix?

    I don’t know a single doctor who would give a kid nitrous just to clean his teeth – this is for actual surgical treatment.

    If the kid panics while being given the nitrous, a) the nitrous doesn’t work very well, and b) you have a drunk, hysterical kid.

    I panic’d while I was being sedated before having my wisdom teeth out (watching the nurse prep the instraments while they were giving me the nitrous was probably a bad idea). Sneakily sedating the child isn’t coddling them, it’s making sure the dang drugs you had to give them anyways actually work.

  • ackpht

    In a recent visit, my dentist asked whether I wanted drugs before she started drilling, because “some people prefer it without drugs”.

    Yeah, well, some people are crazy.

    “Drugs, please!”

  • freshacconci

    #4: I thought they were using a different name. No matter. The music was secondary to the parking lot culture.

  • dnafrequency

    On for me and all my friends, pls!

  • Bloodboiler

    PedoSedate?

    If you are selling a medically and ethically questionable device you should at attempt to make the name sound respectable.

  • Takuan

    a simple cure for dental-needle-phobia:
    http://zombiechiuaua.freehostia.com/

  • Anonymous

    What not one of you has considered is the autistic or developmentally delayed child who would not ever be able to receive even basic dental care without sedation and who would become completely panicked and out of control with a standard face mask for anesthesia. If any of you had a brain, you would acknowledge this is for special cases, not routine care, and say “yea” for not causing stress for kids who don’t understand what’s going on. And, yes, many of these kids are quite capable of playing GameBoy or similar games.

  • mappo

    Mmmmm….stimmmpaaaak.

  • joe blough

    i hate pediatric dentists. the nitrous thing is pure, and i mean pure, profit for them. how much could a small tank of medical grade N2O cost? they get $50 to hook your kid up to this, and INSURANCE WON’T REIMBURSE IT. so its just a free $50 that they know they are going to get 100% of, no questions asked, while they are filling your kid’s cavity.

    and they give you the hard sell. they are already using local anesthetics on the nerve, so why do they need to “relax?” my kids did fine without the nitrous, even at age 5.

  • Anonymous

    They are going by the name The Dead. Warren from Allman Bros. is playing lead. Saw one show, it was excellent, and yes the parking lot is the same. Be on tour till the summer.

  • LightningRose

    Reminds me of the “Kidstoned Chewable Valium” ad:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwxIuyF0nso

  • Takuan

    now it can be Real Life all the time.

  • nutbastard

    @#14 Takuan

    But you still won’t know why this is happening to you.

  • SednaBoo

    Ok, #1, I hope they do Megan’s law checks on people who buy these or something. Or check to see that you have a dental license. And not a white van or a creepy mustache.

    #2: Will the adult version just be hooked up to the DVD for “Half Baked” or something? Or for HappyMutants, “A Scanner Darkly?”

  • Keeper of the Lantern

    Is there a morphine version of that thing?

    My kids are always running around and require a lot of parenting. It sure would be nice to be able to slap that thing on ‘em and get ‘em to chill out a coupla hours each day.

    This reminds me of my old invention: It’s a baby monitor with a soma gas button on it. When the kid starts to cry you hit the button and administer the happy gas.

    When the kid turns 18 you can tilt the crib and roll the kid right out the front door.

  • Anonymous

    thats cool

  • Anonymous

    Game Boy? CD Player? What is this, 1995?