Another redhead here to confirm I need more anaesthesia than average. And it’s important to take seriously. Waking up during a medical procedure is no fun
They gave me more and it took longer for me to wake up after my shoulder surgery haha I was the last person to leave the recovery room and felt very sick afterwards.
I've just got a red beard and the pale pale skin but I remember partially waking up from sedation during a throat endoscopy hearing them talk about and seeing what was on the screen. And then I don't know if I actually did or not, but raising my arm to point at the tube going into my mouth. At the next 2 times I've had it done, I told the anesthesiologist about it and haven't woken up again.
I was born with red hair--now it's brown--and my doctor has told me I have a very high pain tolerance. Also, when I was being sedated for a medical procedure, the nurse asked me if I was getting sleepy, my response was, "No, am I supposed to be?"
When I was very young, my hair in pictures was a very light brown - never light enough to be considered a dirty blond, and by the time I was in the 3rd grade or so, my hair was a very dark brown appearing basically black in all my remaining color school photos - even though in reality and bright light it appears dark brown. My pain tolerance is also incredibly high, though. I refused sedatives for medial branch ablations and didn't notice pain when having a severely swollen and digit manipulated for an X-ray that revealed a deep bone fracture.
Sounds similar to me. I'm brunette with red highlights, but was redder in my youth. My grandfather's family who hadn't seen me for 15 yrs remembered me out of 10 grandkids as "the redheaded grandchild". And yeah I have problems too. At one root canal, they gave me the max dosage but it wasn't enough.
I had to get 25 stitches in my chin (car accident) and another 17 stitches in my side, and I wasn't bothered by either of them. The doctor was actually getting ready to send me home after stitching up my chin when I finally mentioned my side, and he looked pretty surprised. He definitely didn't waste any time getting another patch kit ready. I've definitely walked off things that really should've hurt me if not caused me permanent damage. I once had a broken back and didn't find out for several months. This red head stuff is pretty wild.
@@KatzztarI had to get a root canal once. After 5 annoying injections into the roof of my mouth that still weren't working, I just told the Dr to get it over with. None of those shots even kicked in until 5 hours later, when I was at a book store; suddenly I couldn't speak like normal, everything sounded like my jaw wasn't working. But even then it only lasted ~30 minutes tops.
This came up in the ER. I had been bitten by something and wasn’t in pain. But my arm was blowing up. Third doc to visit me took one look at my hair and said of course she’s not feeling it, she had red hair. Admit her now. And yeah, I spent three days on IV antibiotics to battle in the infection.
I'm not a redhead and fractured a digit. I also went to the ER for the swelling of my right ring finger. The radiologist was surprised that I didn't flinch or seem to notice pain when she had to manipulate my hand and finger for the X-ray.
@@neomatrix4412 A bug, but never never found out what kind. When my arm was swollen, we found seven pairs of pin prick holes. Only visible when my arm was at its worse. Found out it’s not normal to know what bit you unless you bring it in with you. I never saw what bit me.
Nor me. However, as an adult, I don't bother with lidocaine. I'm a migraine person and the pain just doesn't compare. Now that I think about it, I'm functional during most migraines as well, which most people....aren't. It's not by a lot, and not fun, but I can manage.
I just stopped having the injections as a kid because they didn't help much, didn't last long with what small difference they did have, and most importantly, the injections themselves not infrequently hurt worse that whatever else the dentists were doing. Partly because I seem to have a very sensitive mouth, but also because needles just seem to hurt more than most other kinds of pain for some reason. Didn't help at all that the dentists in question were universally either trainees or so new that the ink on their diplomas was still wet.
Probably the biggest failure in medicine in general. The concept of "drug seeking" as a label should be met with "who cares" because limiting treatment to satisfy the war on drugs is unethical.
@@Varadiio Since overprescribing of painkillers--most notably opioids--results in death, "who cares" is not a valid answer. On the up side, the comment was not in tune with the discussion, which was about anesthetics--where there's a fine line between anaesthetized and dead--and visits to the dentist, where repeated shots of lidocaine are usually not of grave concern (unless combined with...certain stimulants that would fall under the "who cares" rule and will then result in death).
Blue eyed redhead here that has very very low pain tolerance. A hangnail can actually bring tears. I do require extra anesthesia though. People are different and interesting.
I have figured out that my internal pain (organs, bones, muscles) tolerance is sky high, but my tolerance for external pain (skin) is ridiculously low. WTF?
I have a high sensitivity, meaning I can notice things like a mosquito landing on me and subtle changes in temperature, but I have a high pain tolerance threshold, meaning things like a fractured bone and non-life threatening puncture wounds or submerging my hand into a pot of boiling water to fetch a hard boiled egg - all actual things that happened to me - will not phase me.
Yeah there's so many different factors behind pain experience that well something can be true as a linked gene that does not mean all people with red hair are pain tolerant it just means that they're more inclined to be slightly more pain tolerant but there's so many other factors. For example I am not a redhead but I have incredible pain tolerance because I've had multiple high pain chronic health issues since I was a small child. I'm pretty sure that you could rip a gash had to toe or pull one of my limbs off and I could keep going. It's not that I don't feel pain, it is that I can tune it out. Sometimes it takes a lot of focus for me to tune pain out, but I can still do it because I have to because most of it doesn't mean anything.
More anecdotal evidence to add. My mom is a brunette and my dad a redhead. I have dark Auburn hair. It looks brown inside, but the red shows up in the sun. 1) Both my mom and myself had laser eye surgery, and I was definitely in a lot more pain than her. 2) I had an infected cyst that I had to go to the emergency room to get removed. The nurse was shocked at how much anesthesia they had to give me to knock me out. She said I had to have as much as a football player. I was 5'4" 115 pounds. 3) I tripped on my kids toys and fell not realizing I had broken my clavicle. It didn't hurt all that much after the initial shock. I got concerned when the next day I still couldn't lift my arm. I was surprised when the x rays showed a completely broken bone.
Heyyy me too! My *mom* is the redhead and my dad is a brunette, and I always thought my hair was brown and not red because it's way darker than my mom's, but over the last year I saw pictures of myself among other people with actual brunette hair and I was like "yeah okay my hair is red(ish) lol". I have a very high pain tolerance; thank the Lord my mom knew me well enough to realize that me being in pain and discomfort was a sign that something was *wrong*, as when I had a broken radius and the other time I had appendicitis. But I'm also much more sensitive to touch and especially dental pain - I learned a few years ago to ask dentists to use more lidocaine than usual because it wears off faster. Fortunately I haven't needed general anesthesia for many years now but if/when the next time comes up, I'll be sure to ask them if I needed more than usual!
I fractured a digit and would've never known if not for the X-rays that I had done due to excessive swelling. I think being struck by lightning a month or so earlier weakened the bones in that hand. Anyway, I could still fully mobilize the digit even with the excessive swelling. I am accurately depicted in my profile pic - that is a picture of part of my face with a deep saturation posterization filter applied taken in very bright light - I'm clearly not a redhead.
I'm a redhead too. I can walk barefoot through gravel and most infections hardly register. I had to have a tooth pulled a few years ago and the dentist kept giving me lidocaine shots, wait 5 minutes and ask if I was numb. I kept answering no, until I'd had several, don't remember how many but more than 5. The wisdom tooth was still sensitive when he pulled it, but I got tired of the repetition and just told him to finish it.
I'm a red-head and it took me a lot of bad experiences with local anesthesia to realize I needed to be telling the doctors that I need more. Since then, it's helped a lot. I wish I had known this earlier.
When I was younger I was getting a tooth pulled, the dentist gave me the legal safe amount of novacaine, but I still felt everything. So I had to be sent to an oral surgeon and be put completely under
When I was younger I got a root canal and the dentist asked me whether or not I wanted novacaine. Being a kid I had no idea what novacaine was and just said no. Terrible decision.
The exact same thing happened to me, also a redhead. Many years later, and just a couple of years ago, a dentist here gave me THREE novocaine injections into the jaw where he was going to operate, after I kept complaining of pain, and I could still feel a lot of pain as he proceeded. That much novocaine caused me heart problems for a few hours until it wore off. Not nice.
lol I switched dentists and the first filling he had to replace went like this: "Are you feeling that numbing yet?" "Kinda, but not really. Could you possibly do another shot?" "Yeah, I was expecting that. Redheads always need a bit more." On the other hand, a higher pain tolerance also results in you knconsciously downplaying your illnesses and problems to doctors and you have to constantly remind yourself to consider how bad it really is because if you're at the doctor, you're there for help and downplaying the actual problem because you feel guilty that "Well, I can still function technically when other people say they feel so much worse, it must not be that bad." Also, screw paper cuts and sunburns.
If something affects your daily life it is worth treatment. Affecting your daily life could even be avoiding foods you usually like, avoiding any activity because pain. For instance, I don't bike because I've messed up my knee. I could treat it by going to a physio with my bike so they could assess my mechanics, range of motion, pain points, and weaknesses. Just standing on this soap box because I've seen at least one person downplay to death. Work on the minor things so you don't downplay the worse ones too.
In 1995, I had a dentist tell me that I probably needed more lidocaine or xylocaine because of my red hair, but that was not scientifically validated yet.
I wonder if I would need such things. My dentist said I had a cavity. He cleaned the spot on the affected tooth with the ultrasonic tool, and it turned white again. I might not ever need a root canal to ever find out... On the other hand, I noted my brain tumors, and the doctors denied them until after CTs and MR imaging discovered them. I didn't have sedatives for my second medial branch ablation and went to the ER for a swollen digit that X-rays showed was broken. I didn't know it was broken and didn't have any remarks about excessive pain. Oh, and what makes all that relevant here is that I'm not a redhead.
I sat through 5 injections into the damned roof of my mouth and none of them were working. I finally told the Dr to just get it over with, and just sat through the whole root canal. I was not a happy camper. I didn't know it had anything to do with my red hair, but I'll just have to keep that in mind going forward.
Redhead here. UK I can manage sharp pains really easily, probably because local anaesthetics don't work so well on me. I could feel the surgeries on my tongue tied frenulum as the surgeons sawed with the scalpel, they didn't believe me and said I had enough pain medicine so I just toughed it out. I could feel the nurse cutting the connective tissue on the implant in my arm away, she said if I had any more anaesthetic it would have to be done in a hospital so I shut up. Before falling asleep for a surgery I surprised the surgeons by not shutting up as they were gassing me. I've done minor surgeries on myself as a child and teen and am able to ignore the pain. I think my lack of pain sensitivity has made me vulnerable to the concerns that follow a pain insensitive body, ignored injuries, SH, risky behaviour (ignoring threats like sharps as they don't hurt enough to be unable to ignore). Thankyou for explaining this, my hair is beautiful but it hides issues nobody understands aside from the vampirism.
I know lots of Red Heads you have a soul. What your problem is in general lot of you walk around with a chip on your shoulder always trying to prove something always angry over nothing. Just chill more.
@@stephenbachman132Sorry, I pulled back on the original comment. Pretty self-defeating really. Yes, it’s overused, just like a lot of what South Park infected millennial brains with. Careful if you ever get into a fight with an Irish person, they have a genetic ability to produce a brick out of nowhere.
I was a heroin addict. Let me tell you. I outlasted everyone people that tried to put me to sleep. It was like weed 4.0. But that's all. Even addiction recovery was easier. Lmao. What a stupid superhero ability.
Have you ever been naloxoned? If so do you recall if it made you start feeling pain more than usual? I don't use intravenous drugs but I am a redhead with chronic pain. I wonder how much worse I would feel if I wasn't a redhead and if I ever got naloxone I wonder if I would suddenly start hurting.
@@apcolleen I can't answer for someone who has a dependency but I can tell you that when I run out between prescriptions that I don't have any mental health withdrawal… I just have a lot of pain. So I would venture to say that's probably the case.
The only time I haven’t felt pain in the last three decades was in the ER when a physician walked in, looked at me, looked at my records and said “Are you a natural redhead?” Yup. “Are you okay with my giving you my redhead pain combo?” Nope. And yeah it worked. I just wish I could remember what it was. Three medications and I don’t think any of them were an opioid.
Context would help a lot. I’m a physician and have no clue what you are trying to explain. If this was for a cut or laceration and local anesthesia was the goal, you may have received a combination of epinephrine, lidocaine and bupivacaine. For mechanical injury, headache, etc. and if it was oral or IV would be very helpful to remember in case you don’t get that doctor again or in case you are traveling and they can not immediate pull your medical records.
But he said they're more sensitive to heat, and your brain reacts to capsaicin like it does for heat, so maybe he's even more badass than it looked like
I'd always heard that redheads feel pain more acutely so this is just confusing now lol. I have the skin type and lidocane resistance of a redhead but I do still have some eumelanin production that gives me red-brown hair and hazel eyes so I always just assumed my incredibly low pain tolerance was related to that. ...but I guess not? My dopamine production is Weird already though since I'm autistic so maybe it has more to do with that instead??? the signal system of the human body is so mysterious
I'm a redhead with ADHD and (undiagnosed) autism. Personally, I have an increased ability to detect stimui and notice smaller things like light touch or small cuts, but I'm not as debilitated by "big" pain as others, like whiplash or endo period cramps. I also feel like I don't get much benefit from opioids, but NSAIDS work fantastic. Nerve signals are definitely weird.
You know, I alway found that "pain on a scale of 1 to 10" BS _extremely_ annoying. So when I was faced with it again recently, I held out my hand and said "I don't know, can you inflict a Level-five pain on my hand for reference please?" You should have seen the look on the nurse's face...
My wife had a nurse ask her pain level. "One is banging your elbow, ten is being hit by a train." ... ... ... My beautiful wife, to my eternal admiration said, "Well, when you started asking, I was going to say 7 or 8. But with the train, I am guessing it's more like 2."
My doctor once asked me the pain on a scale of 1 to 10 question. I asked what exactly the scale is. He said "up to you. you tell me." So I punched him in the face and said "Well that's a seven."
@@BarbarosaAlexander Problem with statements like this is, very few people have been hit by trains and lived, so that reference would mean nothing to almost everybody.
"...ten is the worst pain you can imagine?" - Me picturing Warhmmer 40K servitors, arco flagellants and pentinent engines: "Two maybe? After all it's just an open belly wound..."
High pain tolerance and being resistant to pain meds and anesthesia is the story of my life. I felt very fortunate to find a dentist, ortho, and GP who understand this. I almost cut the end of my index finger off once and was sitting in the ER with an intern. He was frustrated because he'd given me "More lidocaine than I should have" and I could still feel the needle he was trying to stitch me with. I told him to just do it anyway but he couldn't make himself do that. Finally an older supervising doctor walked by, grumbled something about "These new young doctors they turn out today that don't know about red-heads" and did a nerve block on my hand. Norco might as well be M&Ms but weirdly Tramadol works wonders for severe pain. Other than that it's just push through.
Reading this, I assume I might have the red head gene too. Some pain medication doesn't work at all, and other work so good. But I have a very low pain tolerance. I'm a dirty blonde that turns red during spring and fall.
Haha, I did the same thing. Cut the tip of my middle finger clean off with my super sharp chef's knife. It bled like mad but it wasn't too painful. Just wrapped it in gauze and a cloth and then cycled 15 mins to the local hospital (I live in the Netherlands). They made me wait for 10 minutes in the waiting room, because I didn't seem too upset. But when they saw the blood streaming down my arm they fast-tracked me into the doctor's office 😂.
The papercut doesn't make me cry, but the hot tap water sure will!! Never thought the sensitivity to heat was related. On the other stuff though, I've been fortunate to have dentists and surgeons who took one look at my auburn hair and knew to up the dose on the anesthesia/Novocain. My confusion now comes from the need for the extra dose of morphine to even touch the pain when I was in the ER. First round did nothing, second finally took me from 10 to like 7.5. The Vicodin they sent me home with did very little to help, as well, outside of making me very sleepy; at which point, I just slept through the pain rather than actually having it reduced. It's weird. My relationship with pain is generally, 'meh, it's not that bad' most of the time right up until it's suddenly 'omg i'm dying!' It's gReAt!
I'm a redhead with chronic pain. By the time dentists are able to numb me up, it just makes the muscle control away for longer because it takes so much lidocaine.
@@therewillbecatswithgwenhwyfarSame here - redhead with chronic pain, on a stable dose of opioids for 10+ years. No addiction issues. I always need more freezing though; when I had my wisdom teeth removed as a teen, the surgeon had to give me 5 extra injections as I kept moving my mouth 😅
I had a redhead friend in school in the 70s. He used to love to show how he could endure more pain. And an anesthesiologist recently told me he adjusts the dosage for redheads. Release the trolls!
I'm an Anaesthetist and I definitely use a higher induction dose of propofol on my redheads, the real key I think is to use what's called multi-modal coverage. I don't rely on just 1 thing to do my anaesthetic (for anyone, not just redheads) if you can get the benzos in early, follow up with some ketamine, run the gas slightly higher, make sure they get some dexmedetomidine, they'll likely have a better overall experience. You want to cover at many receptors as possible, and redheads aren't resistant to all those different receptors, just some. This falls under the "swiss cheese" model of medicine.
Well as a redhead, I appreciate that. So far, my experience with anesthesia has been good. I seem to wake up right away. Plus I love the anti nausea meds, just in case. I don’t want to find out the hard way that I needed them…
Brown hair but red beard and pale pale skin and definitely need more numbing injections for cavity fillings. Would take forever to finally go numb too, dentist would inject, go out of the room, come back, numb yet? inject more, go out, numb yet? repeat. And then my ear would end up going numb for like 10 hours after.
Similar situation here. I'm definitely brunette, and my facial hair is also brunette, but my head hair goes red when abused. Also, hazel eyes, for whatever that matters. It takes more than the average amount of novocaine/lidocaine to do a filling or extraction on me, and then I have a numb lower lip/jaw for hours afterward..........
@@catebrooks6779 Same! I've been struggling to figure out whether it's normal or not to need anaesthetics reapplied after maybe 45 minutes or an hour..........
Same here. I feel like they don't wait long enough for the numbing to work. I feel most things in the beginning. About halfway it is okay, and then after they are done it keeps getting more numb. And 8 hours later it might be gone away, or maybe not...
When in labor, the nurses and doctor kept saying “you have the epidural you should only be feeling pressure, not pain” and I was getting frustrated because I felt like my pain was being dismissed. In your intro you described pressure as a pain description and I finally feel validated. (Im a redhead and usually have a decent pain tolerance)
Red head & blue eyes... I concure, high tolerance for some pain but very, very, very low tolerance to pain for other things & "pain meds" are next to useless. Hence, I've been in daily excruciating back & neck pain for 21yrs (since a car accident in 2003).
The pain is constant and redheads have a higher percentage of having fibromyalgia. Tylenol is useless, "you will shut down your liver before it does anything" - my doctors words exactly. ibuprofen only helps by reducing the swelling... Once the pain gets to a certain point it sudenly disappears because our body finally reponds to it and releases Endorphins so I tend to skip those kind of meds for even more pain to get a faster response, only then do I take the ibuprofen. Doesn't happen often, but, if I have to be in a hurry then I have no choice but to take a mild opioid... 10mg hydrocodone...(insurance won't cover vicoprofen) it makes the pain manageable
As a red head who has a higher tolerance for pain and who has needed more pain killers to reduce pain I have always understood why. It makes perfect sense. If it takes more pain before I feel it, this means the pain signals are at a much higher level and therefore need more pain killers to suppress. It's like if my pain's level one threshold is 100 decibels of high pitched noise and your pain threshold is only 80 decibels, and the remedy is noise cancellation of the same sound level but an inverted waveform, you would only need a 80 decibel signal while I would need a 100 decibel signal.
As a redhead, the worst pain I've ever endured was a slipped disc. I just rested and lived with it for 2 weeks, no pain meds. The reason being, I had broken my ankle before and had surgery and was given pain meds. I didn't really notice any effect from them. I knew about the relationship between red hair and pain/pain meds, so I just didn't take the rest. I figured no point chancing an addiction for 0 pain relief.
I am a redhead and I definitely do not feel less pain.🤕 I always heard that redheads feel more pain, not less, and I always bought this, because I'm very sensible to pain. This is confusing.🤔
Even more confusing is that I'm not a redhead, and every doctor I've seen is impressed with my pain tolerance. I wonder if it compares to redheads. Considering that I can just have outpatient procedures like a nerve ablation done without sedatives, I would assume that it could be.
There's probably one linked gene that increases pain tolerance but if you've got a bunch of other ones that decrease it then it doesn't matter. But one thing is very clear, painkiller medication does not work well for redheads which means even if there's a little bit less to begin with there's no way to get rid of the rest of it easily.
I’m with you. I’m super sensitive to pain, and I need more anesthetic. My dentist knew I would need more Novocain shots. And he was right! I gave birth via c-section, and it was so painful afterwards. The nurses didn’t seem to believe how much pain I was in. One was concerned that I didn’t want to hold my baby. I couldn’t!
I'm glad the pain chart being really subjective was mentioned cause chronic pain to someone who always has it may just feel like a background 3-4 or so, but if someone who doesn't have chronic pain had the true level of pain acutely, it could be seen as an 7-8
2:12 Ok, lil personal story here, but I’m a red head, and when I was younger I had to get 4 teeth pulled, and insurance didn’t cover the anesthesia so I just went without it, and it didn’t even bother me; I went and played a baseball game after, while my mouth was still bleeding. So from that pov some of these facts are kinda wild.
Fun fact about redheads, during the reign of Elizabeth I in England it became fashionable for women to dye their hair ginger like the Queen, and a common way to do with was using wee...
the first time i read this my StarTrek translator didn't work. i thought "a tiny WHAT?" only when i saw GoBlueGirl's comment did it "Click" that wee is another word for urine. Perhaps my Redhair pain receptors BLOCKED my painful comprehension....
@@GoBlueGirl78 It does. Venetian* ladies on Corfu dyed their hair blonde with horse urine and sunlight. At the fortress museum in Corfu town there’s a crownless hat on display that was worn by one of these ladies to drape the hair on before the urine was rinsed out. *Corfu was owned by the Venetians from the mid-14th century until the late 18th century.
Redhead here! Can confirm I have woken up during a surgery before. So has my biological mother (also redhead), and more than once. Can also confirm the inability to tan, both myself and said mother have tried and been unable to do anything but burn. And can also confirm the pain tolerance- my mother has had kidney stones, one of the most painful experiences a human can go through, and she was walking around like nothing was wrong. My redhead sibling has broken several bones and barely even complained about the pain during either the injury itself or the recovery for any of them. Interesting to hear they might all be connected. I wonder if the infamous "fiery temper" of redheads is also linked or just a myth.
Please do a video discussing people with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and how they often need double (or more) the dose of anesthesia, compared to those without EDS.
6:23 Natural redhead, of all the painful things he could mention, a lego isn't high on my list. However, standing on a british plug (prongs up) is what seems to be equivalent to my non redhead friends. I can get an ankle sprain and that hurts but have had a broken finger and waited for over 2hrs sat in an ED with an icepack thinking I was fine and once the bleeding stops, I can go home. My fear of the dentist makes so much more sense now; I hate going as dentists never believe me when i say i feel that drill.
Very enlightening video!! It Confirms so many things for me. I am a light skinned Black person (Think comedy actress Maya Rudolph) however I am not mixed race nor were my parents. I have hazel/green eyes, freckles but Black head hair and a full ginger beard and ginger hair “down there”. I never considered myself as having an abnormal pain tolerance ,being a male I ,just thought I was good at “Taking it like a man”. A few years ago I experienced some extreme pain in my right upper arm near the shoulder to the point of needing a makeshift arm sling A visit to my doctor and subsequent X-ray revealed bone remodeling from a “non displaced shoulder fracture” that was years old. (by the time of the actual X-ray appointment the pain had fully subsided) Except that I was never treated for such a fracture in the past, and I remember no specific event when it may have occurred ,so at some point in the past I literally broke my arm and just “shook it off” as they say. More recently I had to get two adult rear molars extracted and indeed it required THREE TIMES the usual amount of injections before I was numb enough for the surgery. Now I know why.
I learned about this when I had an ingrown toenail as a teen. After the normal amount of injections of localized anesthesia, I could still feel the scissors when they started sliding under my toenail. I told the doctor, and he said something along the lines of, "Right, you're a redhead. I'll have to give you another shot." He then gave me a brief explanation and fixed my toenail!
100% true. Quite a high pain tolerance. Also come out of anesthesia immediately instead of gradually. Instant wakefulness. Scared medical staff more than once, but no chance to be high as a kite saying weird stuff, so ha.
Similar situation here as apparently I'm brunette with some definite red genes. Was working night shift so went into wisdom tooth extraction dog-tired. Tanked it - local anaesthesia plus medium-strength sedative. Went into it feeling like I could still write a college essay. Physically felt some pain but just mentally felt like "to hell with it". Came out of it to enjoy a two-hour nap at home and went straight to quaffing coffee and playing games on my XBox like it was any other tooth extraction.
I have slightly reddish blonde hair and apparently a VERY high pain tolerance. I impressed my optometrist one time when he was floored that I wasn't feeling some mineral deposits on my contacts. With permission, he tried touching a q-tip to my eye. I actually watched the fibers compress against my cornea, but never felt any pain or desire to blink. Flip side - when I was developing sepsis due to an infected kidney stone, all I felt was tired. I went to the ER the day before with other symptoms, and they fortunately drew a blood culture, or I never would have known how very sick I was! Also, knowing the above, you can believe me when I say that pitocin during labor is the WORST. I didn't even feel my contractions before they gave me that, and afterward, I was vomitting and frantic from the pain.
Can confirm. In 5th grade I got my foot fileted by a chain link fence. Top half off my foot was peeled back revealing a nice chunk of flesh underneath, lost a tendon in that foot and still have a nasty scar from it. Held a smile and wave as they wheelchaired me off the field. My only complaint of pain was getting the 6 numbing shots at the hospital, everything else was super tolerable. (Sorry to Mt.View elementary kids who have to live without football because I slipped in the mud one day)
I clicked on this video and I am leaving this comment solely to support the fact that you didn't try to force me into it by naming it "The SHOCKING TRUTH about redheads FINALLY REVEALED", but instead left completely up to me whether I wanted to by even giving the answer to the question right in the thumbnail. That is just absolutely refreshingly lovely of you! 🤗
Does this apply to people who have *some* red hair but aren't completely ginger or is it only true for flaming redheads? I'm curious because my mother and I both have some red hair, but have mostly brown/black.
So, based on the explanation from the video, it shouldn't work on you. The abscense of the other type of melanin is the problem. If you can produce brown melanin, you should be in balance and not have too much drug tolerance and have normal pain perception. But, if you can't produce brown melanin, that's when the imbalance occurs that causes this problem.
@@honaleri Meh, I'm a mixed melanin producer, and some of the red head stuff definitely applies to me. I am extremely sensitive to heat/the perception of heat, and easily get over heated, for example. I'm not sure about anesthesia and all that, because I've had so little experience. I do have a high pain tolerance, but I've always thought that was learned/built up (and a kind of "mind over matter" approach), so I'm not sure on that one.
@@justinw1765 Yeah, just pay attention to the video though. Redheads, the white kind that don't tan, are the people with the problem. Every human being produces both red and brown melanin, except for the non-tanning redheads, who only produce red melanin and this don't tan. And that's what creates the phenomenon of pain tolerance and opioid receptors resistance, because people who have red hair and no brown melanin have a mutation that prevents those receptors from working properly. So, like, objectively, if you have brown melanin, this doesn't apply to you. Yeah, the act of having high pain tolerance at all isn't solely linked to red hair. Nor is the act of having opioid resistance, solely linked to red hair, this is just a phenomenon that happens to cause both of these things for this specific reason.... So, yeah, you having red hair and brown melanin doesn't mean that you apply to what's happening in the video, but that doesn't mean its impossible for you to have high pain tolerance or what have you. There's many other things that cause this. smh
@@honaleriI have brown hair but I can't turn "tan." I would spent 8 hours a day out in the sun and people still thought I was extremely pale. Being able to produce brown in your hair isn't necessarily the same for your skin. Because you can produce some, but that isn't always enough.
Thank you for answering the question in the thumbnail. That way, I have the choice to view the video IF I want to learn more. OI would subscribe but I am already subscribed but keep it up.
This is interesting and makes a lot of sense. My mom would always get concerned if I was complaining about pain, especially if I was crying, because she said she knew if I was asking for help then it was really bad. Apparently she was right lol
Some thing people often forget or don't consider is that people with chronic pain like myself don't actually experience less pain we're just so used to a higher baseline of pain that when we experience worse pain we're so used to being in pain it gets less of a reaction
….? Well it’s not like skin color influences pain tolerance so why would we be talking about that? Also wtf are you even talking about, people talk about skin color all the time You’re just a troll fishing for a reaction, aren’t you
I'm a redhead and a hobby blacksmith, I've definitely noticed an increased sensitivity to heat compared to others. Though, I don't find that heat hurts me more, in fact I'm able to handle hotter objects than most people I know without feeling pain. It's more like I'm sensitive to the sensation of heat, I have a much better understanding of how hot something actually is and if it's safe to handle and can tell quickly, where peers are more cautious
I must secretly be a redhead then? My pain sensitivity is high, but my pain threshold is also very high. I don't know of anyone who doesn't get the conscious sedative to have an ablation. The sedative makes me sick, so I go without, and strangely enough, I felt less when I didn't have the sedative. I couldn't feel the needles breach the many layers of tissue as the doctor inserted them into my medial branch nerves without the sedative, but I could feel the needles break through the skin muscle and dural layers independently when the conscious sedative was administered beforehand. The procedure was painless for me either way, though, making me wonder why sedatives are recommended and administered by default.
I'm glad you guys did another redhead pain video, because saying "redheads are babies when it comes to pain" in the last video was inaccurate and kinda insulting. When I got my wisdom teeth removed I was given anesthetic and then they started cutting out my impacted teeth. I felt EVERYTHING. Before that I didn't really have any issues with dentists, probably because of having a higher pain tolerance. But after having gums cut and teeth pulled while not feeling numbed at all I understood what being tortured must feel like. I am pretty sensitive to hot and cold though.
That's my case and it applies, maybe. I hit all the "symptomatic boxes" I know that when I bleached my hair as a teen I looked blond from the outset but my stylist confirmed I was a redhead because red bleaches much faster than the yellow of blonds by a huge margin. I would turn bleached in a handful of minutes. My beard is like tarnished copper, different from my dirty blond hair.
I'm a blonde with a a seemingly reccesive red hair gene and I definitely got the anti anesthesia gene first time I got a doctor to give me a higher dose I was shocked to find out your not supposed to feel anything while numbed apparently
There is only a small amount of Redhead Genetics in my Family Tree/Genes, but even without being a Redhead I can confirm through personal & other relative's experiences it is true that we have higher pain tolerances & need more drugs for medical procedures. Earlier this year I had a cracked tooth that needed to be removed, the Oral Surgeon had to double the "Block" as well as quadruple the Novacaine & even then I still felt some of what they were doing during the removal as well as afterwards the tingling/semi-numbness only lasted maybe 2 hours at most. Other times I needed Dental Work or other medical procedures (I'm a 31 year old Man) similar things had to be done such as increasing anesthetic and/or stronger doses of pain relievers. As for my siblings Novacaine & Lidocaine & other "Caines" don't work at all, and other medications that relieve/reduce pain also need to be increased dosages to get any effect.
I'm just glad scientists are thinking about pain at all. All they do is worry about who's taking 😱OPIODS!😱 instead of considering what a good portion of the population is enduring in their daily lives.
Nice, this is a really in-depth explanation but explained well enough for me to sort of understand. Not sure I'll be able to remember this as a conversation starter if I meet a cute redhead.
I felt less when the doctors did not administer sedative... during a nerve ablation. I see better in the dark than my mother, who actually has bright blue eyes. Everyone thinks I'm Asian and I possess a lot of features that would be considered phenotypically Asian from my appearance to my blood type, earwax, hair growth, and more. My parents swear that I am not adopted.
@@filipbergman4232 She never remarked about seeing well in the dark, and I remember my mother not being able to see well in the dark when I was very young, meaning my mother was in her mid to late 20s. I'm in my mid-30s now, and lighting conditions my mother found difficult to manage when I was young are easier for me to manage with me being more than 5 years older than my mother was back then.
@@filipbergman4232 RUclips did not let me reply. What a shock... the tl;dr is that I can see better now in the dark than my mother when my mother was younger than I am now.
Whenever there is a discussion about Wisdom Tooth extraction, I can tell my story of having to use the Lamaze breathing technique in my Wisdom Tooth extraction: No amount of anesthesia the dentist put in my gums, no pain relief happened. While not a true redhead, I had a red-headed Mother who had red-headed siblings, so my bet is that I also have that red-headed gene thing going on. In my experience as a Certified Nurse-Midwife, I also observed that red-headed women got little relief from any local anesthesia for any repair needed and that red-headed women who underwent Cesarean Section also had resistance to any anesthesia needed for the surgery. This is a very common finding in childbirth.
Very interesting. I'm a black woman, and I have a high pain tolerance but then also require more numbing at the dentist. It's so cool to hear the science behind it.
When i had fillings in my teeth done as a child, i almost never used the numbing shots. Theyd give me like 5 or more of them, and even then id still feel them drilling away. If i was going to be in pain anyways, i might as well not have to desl with half of my face being numb for a few hours
@theaxer3751 so from what I can remember, it did numb my sense of pressure and touch slightly during it, but not enough to even take off 25% of the pain from drilling. It wasn't until after I was already home that the numbness spread to my cheek and face
@@kinexkid One of my complaints with dental procedures is that they don't allow enough time for the numbing shots to take effect. I also feel the drill and nerve pain when having fillings, but an hour later at home my mouth and face are numb, properly! So now I self advocate and get them to apply the med before doing all the talking and explaining, and stall them on starting the procedure for a bit to give it a chance to work!
@lynettejwhite that's really smart, I can't believe I never thought to do that haha. Hopefully i don't need any work done on my teeth in the near future, bu5 if I do ill make sure to grt the shots far before they start
These studies are always so interesting to me. I, and every other redhead in my family, are extremely sensitive to all anesthesia and need a fraction of a normal dose. Opioids make me feel so sick, I put them on my allergy list. I do have a high pain tolerance though!
I always had trouble describing pain to doctors usimg the 1-10 pain charts with the smiley/frowny faces until I came across one that had descriptions that talked about how it affects your ability to focus on and do things.
I wonder how many "because they have no soul" jokes, and I use that term loosely, are going to be in the comments. As a black guy, I've never understood "ginger" jokes, I love redheads.
In certain parts of Africa, redheads are considered evil, bad, etc. (I have a theory that it may relate to ancient times when the Atlanteans, which were a technologically advanced and empire creating civilization, [sort of like modern day America] were conquering different peoples and lands. Some say the Celts [among some other groups] are descendants of the Atlanteans, whom Edgar Cayce source interestingly called the "red race". The Celts, or rather their descendants have the highest preponderance of reddish hair on the planet. Hence the peoples who experienced the domination and conquesting of the Atlanteans-some of whom may have looked very Celtic like, well it left a bad taste in their mouth very understandably.)
Another angle, as a Redhead myself, we go through a lot of severe bullying starting from a young age, we learn to dissconnect from pain, or simply learn to raise our field of tolerence for emotional and physical distress.
Okay, I'll watch the rest of the video. I'm going to go with linguistic bias. Scientists are calling it pain tolerance, they should be calling it pain endurance.
As a disabled ginger I am so glad this is becoming more accessible info! Now I can just show my doctors this video instead of all the reassure papers. Lidocaine barely works and ive had multiple surgeries where I had to grin and bear it.
Hmm, never thought about it before. I definitely feel pain, I'm just not a little crying baby about it. I hate mosquittos, though. They don't hurt, but they have to die. 🤔
I originally became aware of these differences a few years ago after googling it when it became clear to me that I didn't experience the world the same as people around me. A lot of increased pain sensitivity and dental anesthesia not working well are the main things I noticed. The difference in heat sensitivity between me and my wife is huge. I didn't know about the reduced pain sensitivity aspect but that could explain why I had no trouble sitting through a tattoo for hours.
That’s not what I’ve heard. Got a redhead sister, & her two boys (who are not redheads) but all have en extremely high threshold for pain. Kept her youngest wild child for six years & never heard him cry.
I am a redhead, and I feel more pain than everyone around me. And unlike what the video and many comments say, dentists use a fraction of the normal amount of anesthesia on me and I go loopy like I’m high or very drunk.
I have strawberry blonde. My cousins range from auburn brown to bright red. I definitely have the redhead gene. I have a high pain tolerance, need more anesthesia and don’t respond well to some meds vs others.
Some say the Celts are descendants of the Atlanteans, along with other pockets of peoples like the Basques, Berbers, Guanches, etc. Interestingly, these groups all have an unusually high preponderance of Rh negative blood type, and more specifically unusually high occurrence of O- blood type (the "universal" donor). Interestingly, Edgar Cayce's source said that the Atlanteans were the "red race" as distinct from the white, brown, black, and yellow (Asian).
Dogs are actually less genetically diverse then Humans. Yet diverse in forms so how do diffine race in humans . More genetically diverse then dogs yet less physically different
Just my two cents: my dentist is usually pretty good at redosing lidocaine when I need it, but when I got my wisdom teeth out they said they reached the max dose before they even had two teeth out. And when they switched to laughing gas, it barely worked and had almost no effect on my cognition. Some time after, I watched a (now previous) scishow video on redhead anesthetic resistance and my parents told me I was born with red hair. Also, I once got a nasty inch long cut that required three layers of stitches. (which I had to be persuaded to get since I was more afraid of the stitches than the cut which didn't hurt) And the doctor told me they reached the limit on allowed lidocaine during the second layer. Last layer sucked.
It's cool seeing a video about this because I have a lot of experience with this throughout my life. For a recent example, I was having wrist surgery a few years ago, and the doctor actually gave me extra anesthetics because I knew they generally they don't work well on me, but even then about 10-15 minutes into the surgery, I regained full feeling in my arm. Not a pleasant experience.
Thinking back to every time a dentist has refused to believe me when I try to inform of how ineffective the localized anesthesia was... I had to go double check what my hair colour is.
This explains a lot. I'm not a read head. (Normally. Seasonal hair, so red is a color i've been before.) But it's interesting because i have a high pain _resistance_ with a low pain _tolerance_. The low tolerance makes sense according to this video purely because i'm functionally immune to opiates, due to another condition i have. If pain tolerance is largely controlled through opiate receptor binding, then my high level of sensory pain would make sense.
Another redhead here to confirm I need more anaesthesia than average. And it’s important to take seriously. Waking up during a medical procedure is no fun
They gave me more and it took longer for me to wake up after my shoulder surgery haha I was the last person to leave the recovery room and felt very sick afterwards.
I've just got a red beard and the pale pale skin but I remember partially waking up from sedation during a throat endoscopy hearing them talk about and seeing what was on the screen. And then I don't know if I actually did or not, but raising my arm to point at the tube going into my mouth. At the next 2 times I've had it done, I told the anesthesiologist about it and haven't woken up again.
I always have to remind my dentist, "Use more lidocaine than you think is appropriate. PLEASE!!!"
Can confirm!
One of the anaesthesia horror stories I've heard about is waking up and feeling the pain, but the paralyzing part is still in effect...
I was born with red hair--now it's brown--and my doctor has told me I have a very high pain tolerance. Also, when I was being sedated for a medical procedure, the nurse asked me if I was getting sleepy, my response was, "No, am I supposed to be?"
You could be a robot
When I was very young, my hair in pictures was a very light brown - never light enough to be considered a dirty blond, and by the time I was in the 3rd grade or so, my hair was a very dark brown appearing basically black in all my remaining color school photos - even though in reality and bright light it appears dark brown.
My pain tolerance is also incredibly high, though. I refused sedatives for medial branch ablations and didn't notice pain when having a severely swollen and digit manipulated for an X-ray that revealed a deep bone fracture.
Sounds similar to me. I'm brunette with red highlights, but was redder in my youth. My grandfather's family who hadn't seen me for 15 yrs remembered me out of 10 grandkids as "the redheaded grandchild".
And yeah I have problems too.
At one root canal, they gave me the max dosage but it wasn't enough.
I had to get 25 stitches in my chin (car accident) and another 17 stitches in my side, and I wasn't bothered by either of them. The doctor was actually getting ready to send me home after stitching up my chin when I finally mentioned my side, and he looked pretty surprised. He definitely didn't waste any time getting another patch kit ready.
I've definitely walked off things that really should've hurt me if not caused me permanent damage. I once had a broken back and didn't find out for several months. This red head stuff is pretty wild.
@@KatzztarI had to get a root canal once. After 5 annoying injections into the roof of my mouth that still weren't working, I just told the Dr to get it over with. None of those shots even kicked in until 5 hours later, when I was at a book store; suddenly I couldn't speak like normal, everything sounded like my jaw wasn't working. But even then it only lasted ~30 minutes tops.
This came up in the ER. I had been bitten by something and wasn’t in pain. But my arm was blowing up. Third doc to visit me took one look at my hair and said of course she’s not feeling it, she had red hair. Admit her now. And yeah, I spent three days on IV antibiotics to battle in the infection.
I'm not a redhead and fractured a digit. I also went to the ER for the swelling of my right ring finger. The radiologist was surprised that I didn't flinch or seem to notice pain when she had to manipulate my hand and finger for the X-ray.
please have lots of children. world needs more pain resistant people.
@@4umy But then again, pain alerts people to very dangerous problems. Pain tells us when to stop.
bitten by something a bug or mammal
@@neomatrix4412 A bug, but never never found out what kind. When my arm was swollen, we found seven pairs of pin prick holes. Only visible when my arm was at its worse. Found out it’s not normal to know what bit you unless you bring it in with you. I never saw what bit me.
This is partially why I hate dentists so much. As a kid, the dentists didn't believe what I told them.
Nor me. However, as an adult, I don't bother with lidocaine. I'm a migraine person and the pain just doesn't compare.
Now that I think about it, I'm functional during most migraines as well, which most people....aren't. It's not by a lot, and not fun, but I can manage.
I just stopped having the injections as a kid because they didn't help much, didn't last long with what small difference they did have, and most importantly, the injections themselves not infrequently hurt worse that whatever else the dentists were doing. Partly because I seem to have a very sensitive mouth, but also because needles just seem to hurt more than most other kinds of pain for some reason.
Didn't help at all that the dentists in question were universally either trainees or so new that the ink on their diplomas was still wet.
Probably the biggest failure in medicine in general. The concept of "drug seeking" as a label should be met with "who cares" because limiting treatment to satisfy the war on drugs is unethical.
@@Varadiio Is that an American thing?
@@Varadiio Since overprescribing of painkillers--most notably opioids--results in death, "who cares" is not a valid answer.
On the up side, the comment was not in tune with the discussion, which was about anesthetics--where there's a fine line between anaesthetized and dead--and visits to the dentist, where repeated shots of lidocaine are usually not of grave concern (unless combined with...certain stimulants that would fall under the "who cares" rule and will then result in death).
Blue eyed redhead here that has very very low pain tolerance. A hangnail can actually bring tears. I do require extra anesthesia though. People are different and interesting.
me too! dentists never give me enough... as a kid i had to go to a specialist. used to be extremely afraid of it
I have figured out that my internal pain (organs, bones, muscles) tolerance is sky high, but my tolerance for external pain (skin) is ridiculously low. WTF?
Tbf, hangnails can be excruciating! I definitely have a high pain threshold, and I still find hangnails to be one of the most painful minor injuries.
I have a high sensitivity, meaning I can notice things like a mosquito landing on me and subtle changes in temperature, but I have a high pain tolerance threshold, meaning things like a fractured bone and non-life threatening puncture wounds or submerging my hand into a pot of boiling water to fetch a hard boiled egg - all actual things that happened to me - will not phase me.
Yeah there's so many different factors behind pain experience that well something can be true as a linked gene that does not mean all people with red hair are pain tolerant it just means that they're more inclined to be slightly more pain tolerant but there's so many other factors. For example I am not a redhead but I have incredible pain tolerance because I've had multiple high pain chronic health issues since I was a small child. I'm pretty sure that you could rip a gash had to toe or pull one of my limbs off and I could keep going. It's not that I don't feel pain, it is that I can tune it out. Sometimes it takes a lot of focus for me to tune pain out, but I can still do it because I have to because most of it doesn't mean anything.
More anecdotal evidence to add. My mom is a brunette and my dad a redhead. I have dark Auburn hair. It looks brown inside, but the red shows up in the sun. 1) Both my mom and myself had laser eye surgery, and I was definitely in a lot more pain than her. 2) I had an infected cyst that I had to go to the emergency room to get removed. The nurse was shocked at how much anesthesia they had to give me to knock me out. She said I had to have as much as a football player. I was 5'4" 115 pounds. 3) I tripped on my kids toys and fell not realizing I had broken my clavicle. It didn't hurt all that much after the initial shock. I got concerned when the next day I still couldn't lift my arm. I was surprised when the x rays showed a completely broken bone.
I broke my clavicle too and didn't realize it until I had a bone scan months later.🤦🏽♀️🤷🏽♀️
Heyyy me too! My *mom* is the redhead and my dad is a brunette, and I always thought my hair was brown and not red because it's way darker than my mom's, but over the last year I saw pictures of myself among other people with actual brunette hair and I was like "yeah okay my hair is red(ish) lol". I have a very high pain tolerance; thank the Lord my mom knew me well enough to realize that me being in pain and discomfort was a sign that something was *wrong*, as when I had a broken radius and the other time I had appendicitis. But I'm also much more sensitive to touch and especially dental pain - I learned a few years ago to ask dentists to use more lidocaine than usual because it wears off faster. Fortunately I haven't needed general anesthesia for many years now but if/when the next time comes up, I'll be sure to ask them if I needed more than usual!
I fractured a digit and would've never known if not for the X-rays that I had done due to excessive swelling. I think being struck by lightning a month or so earlier weakened the bones in that hand. Anyway, I could still fully mobilize the digit even with the excessive swelling.
I am accurately depicted in my profile pic - that is a picture of part of my face with a deep saturation posterization filter applied taken in very bright light - I'm clearly not a redhead.
@@elendiastarman I have the same kind of hair - brown inside, red in the sun. I didn't realize I had red hair until I was an adult. 🤣
I'm a redhead too. I can walk barefoot through gravel and most infections hardly register. I had to have a tooth pulled a few years ago and the dentist kept giving me lidocaine shots, wait 5 minutes and ask if I was numb. I kept answering no, until I'd had several, don't remember how many but more than 5. The wisdom tooth was still sensitive when he pulled it, but I got tired of the repetition and just told him to finish it.
I'm a red-head and it took me a lot of bad experiences with local anesthesia to realize I needed to be telling the doctors that I need more. Since then, it's helped a lot. I wish I had known this earlier.
When I was younger I was getting a tooth pulled, the dentist gave me the legal safe amount of novacaine, but I still felt everything. So I had to be sent to an oral surgeon and be put completely under
Similar but opposite experience. I didn’t want to go under so I could communicate with my doctor and ask for more novocaine.
They had to put me under too. Then give me novacaine.
When I was younger I got a root canal and the dentist asked me whether or not I wanted novacaine. Being a kid I had no idea what novacaine was and just said no. Terrible decision.
Hey same
The exact same thing happened to me, also a redhead. Many years later, and just a couple of years ago, a dentist here gave me THREE novocaine injections into the jaw where he was going to operate, after I kept complaining of pain, and I could still feel a lot of pain as he proceeded. That much novocaine caused me heart problems for a few hours until it wore off. Not nice.
lol I switched dentists and the first filling he had to replace went like this:
"Are you feeling that numbing yet?"
"Kinda, but not really. Could you possibly do another shot?"
"Yeah, I was expecting that. Redheads always need a bit more."
On the other hand, a higher pain tolerance also results in you knconsciously downplaying your illnesses and problems to doctors and you have to constantly remind yourself to consider how bad it really is because if you're at the doctor, you're there for help and downplaying the actual problem because you feel guilty that "Well, I can still function technically when other people say they feel so much worse, it must not be that bad."
Also, screw paper cuts and sunburns.
He's not wrong.
YEP!! Paper cuts, splinters, and sunburns ALL SUCK!!!!
When asked about where I am on a pain scale, I add at least two points.
you needed MOREEE???
If something affects your daily life it is worth treatment. Affecting your daily life could even be avoiding foods you usually like, avoiding any activity because pain. For instance, I don't bike because I've messed up my knee. I could treat it by going to a physio with my bike so they could assess my mechanics, range of motion, pain points, and weaknesses.
Just standing on this soap box because I've seen at least one person downplay to death. Work on the minor things so you don't downplay the worse ones too.
“As far back as 2005…” ah the ancient times
😉
Modern medicine is objectively a young scientific practice so its not THAT far off a joke
that was 19 years ago
In 1995, I had a dentist tell me that I probably needed more lidocaine or xylocaine because of my red hair, but that was not scientifically validated yet.
I was there Gandalf...
After all those years of exposure to moral suffering in school no physical pain is strong enough anymore.
I feel that.
Don’t forget the clowns 🤡
Moral... suffering?
@@plwadodveeefdv chill, not everybody is an English native speaker
I was given 13 shots of anesthesia during my root canal and still felt my dentist drilling into my mouth. Horrible.
Lol you need anesthesia
I wonder if I would need such things. My dentist said I had a cavity. He cleaned the spot on the affected tooth with the ultrasonic tool, and it turned white again. I might not ever need a root canal to ever find out...
On the other hand, I noted my brain tumors, and the doctors denied them until after CTs and MR imaging discovered them. I didn't have sedatives for my second medial branch ablation and went to the ER for a swollen digit that X-rays showed was broken. I didn't know it was broken and didn't have any remarks about excessive pain.
Oh, and what makes all that relevant here is that I'm not a redhead.
Same
I sat through 5 injections into the damned roof of my mouth and none of them were working. I finally told the Dr to just get it over with, and just sat through the whole root canal.
I was not a happy camper. I didn't know it had anything to do with my red hair, but I'll just have to keep that in mind going forward.
I might need a root canal. I already need 3 shots just for a filling but now I'm even more concerned.
Redhead here. UK
I can manage sharp pains really easily, probably because local anaesthetics don't work so well on me. I could feel the surgeries on my tongue tied frenulum as the surgeons sawed with the scalpel, they didn't believe me and said I had enough pain medicine so I just toughed it out.
I could feel the nurse cutting the connective tissue on the implant in my arm away, she said if I had any more anaesthetic it would have to be done in a hospital so I shut up.
Before falling asleep for a surgery I surprised the surgeons by not shutting up as they were gassing me.
I've done minor surgeries on myself as a child and teen and am able to ignore the pain.
I think my lack of pain sensitivity has made me vulnerable to the concerns that follow a pain insensitive body, ignored injuries, SH, risky behaviour (ignoring threats like sharps as they don't hurt enough to be unable to ignore).
Thankyou for explaining this, my hair is beautiful but it hides issues nobody understands aside from the vampirism.
I'm a red headed super hero! If only I had a soul....
I know lots of Red Heads you have a soul. What your problem is in general lot of you walk around with a chip on your shoulder always trying to prove something always angry over nothing.
Just chill more.
@@silverXnoise I just think the joke is over used
@@stephenbachman132Sorry, I pulled back on the original comment. Pretty self-defeating really. Yes, it’s overused, just like a lot of what South Park infected millennial brains with. Careful if you ever get into a fight with an Irish person, they have a genetic ability to produce a brick out of nowhere.
no soul is why you don't feel pain. LOGIC
I always say my freckles are the amount of souls i have stolen as a ginger lol.
I was a heroin addict. Let me tell you. I outlasted everyone people that tried to put me to sleep. It was like weed 4.0. But that's all. Even addiction recovery was easier. Lmao. What a stupid superhero ability.
@@andrewweaver2517 lol ❤️
welp, at least you didnt become Fentanyl addict!
Have you ever been naloxoned? If so do you recall if it made you start feeling pain more than usual?
I don't use intravenous drugs but I am a redhead with chronic pain. I wonder how much worse I would feel if I wasn't a redhead and if I ever got naloxone I wonder if I would suddenly start hurting.
@@apcolleen I can't answer for someone who has a dependency but I can tell you that when I run out between prescriptions that I don't have any mental health withdrawal… I just have a lot of pain. So I would venture to say that's probably the case.
Lucky you. It was hell for me getting off that stuff
The only time I haven’t felt pain in the last three decades was in the ER when a physician walked in, looked at me, looked at my records and said “Are you a natural redhead?” Yup. “Are you okay with my giving you my redhead pain combo?” Nope. And yeah it worked. I just wish I could remember what it was. Three medications and I don’t think any of them were an opioid.
Ask a nurse. I know it works.
Context would help a lot. I’m a physician and have no clue what you are trying to explain. If this was for a cut or laceration and local anesthesia was the goal, you may have received a combination of epinephrine, lidocaine and bupivacaine. For mechanical injury, headache, etc. and if it was oral or IV would be very helpful to remember in case you don’t get that doctor again or in case you are traveling and they can not immediate pull your medical records.
My newly gained respect for Conan O'brien after Hot Ones just dropped again
😂
But he said they're more sensitive to heat, and your brain reacts to capsaicin like it does for heat, so maybe he's even more badass than it looked like
Oh so this would explain why Yosemite Sam kept coming back for more even after getting hit with a cannon ball. Got it. 😂
Also why his pants were so tight. He couldn't feel his love marbles getting smashed.
@@xVibra That he could feel, he was just into it
Must be why they're often the most powerful warriors in the Lands Between
Even St. Trina can't put Radagon to sleep
I'd always heard that redheads feel pain more acutely so this is just confusing now lol. I have the skin type and lidocane resistance of a redhead but I do still have some eumelanin production that gives me red-brown hair and hazel eyes so I always just assumed my incredibly low pain tolerance was related to that. ...but I guess not? My dopamine production is Weird already though since I'm autistic so maybe it has more to do with that instead??? the signal system of the human body is so mysterious
I'm a redhead with ADHD and (undiagnosed) autism. Personally, I have an increased ability to detect stimui and notice smaller things like light touch or small cuts, but I'm not as debilitated by "big" pain as others, like whiplash or endo period cramps. I also feel like I don't get much benefit from opioids, but NSAIDS work fantastic.
Nerve signals are definitely weird.
You know, I alway found that "pain on a scale of 1 to 10" BS _extremely_ annoying. So when I was faced with it again recently, I held out my hand and said "I don't know, can you inflict a Level-five pain on my hand for reference please?" You should have seen the look on the nurse's face...
My wife had a nurse ask her pain level.
"One is banging your elbow, ten is being hit by a train."
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...
...
My beautiful wife, to my eternal admiration said, "Well, when you started asking, I was going to say 7 or 8. But with the train, I am guessing it's more like 2."
My doctor once asked me the pain on a scale of 1 to 10 question. I asked what exactly the scale is. He said "up to you. you tell me." So I punched him in the face and said "Well that's a seven."
@@BarbarosaAlexander Problem with statements like this is, very few people have been hit by trains and lived, so that reference would mean nothing to almost everybody.
"...ten is the worst pain you can imagine?" - Me picturing Warhmmer 40K servitors, arco flagellants and pentinent engines: "Two maybe? After all it's just an open belly wound..."
@@feynthefallen pretty much exactly our thought, beyond the ludicrous extreme of it.
The complexity of genetics and its relation to pain perception is truly fascinating.
High pain tolerance and being resistant to pain meds and anesthesia is the story of my life. I felt very fortunate to find a dentist, ortho, and GP who understand this. I almost cut the end of my index finger off once and was sitting in the ER with an intern. He was frustrated because he'd given me "More lidocaine than I should have" and I could still feel the needle he was trying to stitch me with. I told him to just do it anyway but he couldn't make himself do that. Finally an older supervising doctor walked by, grumbled something about "These new young doctors they turn out today that don't know about red-heads" and did a nerve block on my hand. Norco might as well be M&Ms but weirdly Tramadol works wonders for severe pain. Other than that it's just push through.
Reading this, I assume I might have the red head gene too. Some pain medication doesn't work at all, and other work so good. But I have a very low pain tolerance. I'm a dirty blonde that turns red during spring and fall.
@@Eet0saurus - I hereby declare thee an honorary ginger chylde. ;)
Haha, I did the same thing. Cut the tip of my middle finger clean off with my super sharp chef's knife. It bled like mad but it wasn't too painful. Just wrapped it in gauze and a cloth and then cycled 15 mins to the local hospital (I live in the Netherlands). They made me wait for 10 minutes in the waiting room, because I didn't seem too upset. But when they saw the blood streaming down my arm they fast-tracked me into the doctor's office 😂.
The papercut doesn't make me cry, but the hot tap water sure will!! Never thought the sensitivity to heat was related.
On the other stuff though, I've been fortunate to have dentists and surgeons who took one look at my auburn hair and knew to up the dose on the anesthesia/Novocain. My confusion now comes from the need for the extra dose of morphine to even touch the pain when I was in the ER. First round did nothing, second finally took me from 10 to like 7.5. The Vicodin they sent me home with did very little to help, as well, outside of making me very sleepy; at which point, I just slept through the pain rather than actually having it reduced.
It's weird. My relationship with pain is generally, 'meh, it's not that bad' most of the time right up until it's suddenly 'omg i'm dying!' It's gReAt!
I'm a redhead with chronic pain. By the time dentists are able to numb me up, it just makes the muscle control away for longer because it takes so much lidocaine.
Opioids work really well for my RA & fibromyalgia pain, but I've been on a stable dose for over 8 years without any issues with addiction.
@@therewillbecatswithgwenhwyfarSame here - redhead with chronic pain, on a stable dose of opioids for 10+ years. No addiction issues. I always need more freezing though; when I had my wisdom teeth removed as a teen, the surgeon had to give me 5 extra injections as I kept moving my mouth 😅
@@GoBlueGirl78 yeah and I am super looking forward to getting six extractions done.
Hopefully the Versed will work really well. Lol
@@therewillbecatswithgwenhwyfar Versed works very well as twilight anesthesia!
Yeah, my ear will be numb for like 10 hours after getting a cavity filled because so much extra lidocaine.
I had a redhead friend in school in the 70s. He used to love to show how he could endure more pain. And an anesthesiologist recently told me he adjusts the dosage for redheads. Release the trolls!
I'm an Anaesthetist and I definitely use a higher induction dose of propofol on my redheads, the real key I think is to use what's called multi-modal coverage. I don't rely on just 1 thing to do my anaesthetic (for anyone, not just redheads) if you can get the benzos in early, follow up with some ketamine, run the gas slightly higher, make sure they get some dexmedetomidine, they'll likely have a better overall experience. You want to cover at many receptors as possible, and redheads aren't resistant to all those different receptors, just some. This falls under the "swiss cheese" model of medicine.
Well as a redhead, I appreciate that. So far, my experience with anesthesia has been good. I seem to wake up right away. Plus I love the anti nausea meds, just in case. I don’t want to find out the hard way that I needed them…
0:13 but for me it's like as if the body of redheads saying "reject anesthesia, because i'm already pain-tolerant"
Brown hair but red beard and pale pale skin and definitely need more numbing injections for cavity fillings. Would take forever to finally go numb too, dentist would inject, go out of the room, come back, numb yet? inject more, go out, numb yet? repeat. And then my ear would end up going numb for like 10 hours after.
Same but not the length! It could conk out during the procedure.
Similar situation here. I'm definitely brunette, and my facial hair is also brunette, but my head hair goes red when abused. Also, hazel eyes, for whatever that matters. It takes more than the average amount of novocaine/lidocaine to do a filling or extraction on me, and then I have a numb lower lip/jaw for hours afterward..........
@@catebrooks6779 Same! I've been struggling to figure out whether it's normal or not to need anaesthetics reapplied after maybe 45 minutes or an hour..........
Same here. I feel like they don't wait long enough for the numbing to work. I feel most things in the beginning. About halfway it is okay, and then after they are done it keeps getting more numb. And 8 hours later it might be gone away, or maybe not...
When in labor, the nurses and doctor kept saying “you have the epidural you should only be feeling pressure, not pain” and I was getting frustrated because I felt like my pain was being dismissed.
In your intro you described pressure as a pain description and I finally feel validated.
(Im a redhead and usually have a decent pain tolerance)
Red head & blue eyes...
I concure, high tolerance for some pain but very, very, very low tolerance to pain for other things & "pain meds" are next to useless. Hence, I've been in daily excruciating back & neck pain for 21yrs (since a car accident in 2003).
The pain is constant and redheads have a higher percentage of having fibromyalgia. Tylenol is useless, "you will shut down your liver before it does anything" - my doctors words exactly. ibuprofen only helps by reducing the swelling... Once the pain gets to a certain point it sudenly disappears because our body finally reponds to it and releases Endorphins so I tend to skip those kind of meds for even more pain to get a faster response, only then do I take the ibuprofen. Doesn't happen often, but, if I have to be in a hurry then I have no choice but to take a mild opioid... 10mg hydrocodone...(insurance won't cover vicoprofen) it makes the pain manageable
The pain killers not working thing is so real! I hate it!
The fundamental problem is that it's impossible to tell "feels less pain" from "more used to feeling pain".
False. There is a difference between pain threshold and pain tolerance.
You mean that a person isn't supposed to feel the drill at the dentists?....I wish I had known that 40 someone years ago
At worst it's supposed to feel like pressure. Definitely shouldn't feel pain.
Yeah, you can't get away from feeling the Pressure or vibration since it's directly transmitted through your bones but you shouldn't be in any pain.
Before this information was available I thought that everyone felt the drill at the dentist. Now I advocate for myself.
When thinking back on all of the pain I've experienced in my life, stepping on a LEGO is pretty low on the list.
It depends on the lego piece.
As a red head who has a higher tolerance for pain and who has needed more pain killers to reduce pain I have always understood why. It makes perfect sense. If it takes more pain before I feel it, this means the pain signals are at a much higher level and therefore need more pain killers to suppress.
It's like if my pain's level one threshold is 100 decibels of high pitched noise and your pain threshold is only 80 decibels, and the remedy is noise cancellation of the same sound level but an inverted waveform, you would only need a 80 decibel signal while I would need a 100 decibel signal.
Lol yep! I almost died from a surgery when I was two. Same reason....they had given me a second dose that I wouldn't wake up from...
As a redhead, the worst pain I've ever endured was a slipped disc. I just rested and lived with it for 2 weeks, no pain meds. The reason being, I had broken my ankle before and had surgery and was given pain meds. I didn't really notice any effect from them. I knew about the relationship between red hair and pain/pain meds, so I just didn't take the rest. I figured no point chancing an addiction for 0 pain relief.
I am a redhead and I definitely do not feel less pain.🤕 I always heard that redheads feel more pain, not less, and I always bought this, because I'm very sensible to pain. This is confusing.🤔
more confusing: I have a very high internal pain tolerance (muscles, bones, organs) but incredibly low external pain tolerance (skin)
Even more confusing is that I'm not a redhead, and every doctor I've seen is impressed with my pain tolerance. I wonder if it compares to redheads.
Considering that I can just have outpatient procedures like a nerve ablation done without sedatives, I would assume that it could be.
There's probably one linked gene that increases pain tolerance but if you've got a bunch of other ones that decrease it then it doesn't matter. But one thing is very clear, painkiller medication does not work well for redheads which means even if there's a little bit less to begin with there's no way to get rid of the rest of it easily.
That's.... kind of what the video says
I’m with you. I’m super sensitive to pain, and I need more anesthetic. My dentist knew I would need more Novocain shots. And he was right!
I gave birth via c-section, and it was so painful afterwards. The nurses didn’t seem to believe how much pain I was in. One was concerned that I didn’t want to hold my baby. I couldn’t!
I'm glad the pain chart being really subjective was mentioned cause chronic pain to someone who always has it may just feel like a background 3-4 or so, but if someone who doesn't have chronic pain had the true level of pain acutely, it could be seen as an 7-8
2:12 Ok, lil personal story here, but I’m a red head, and when I was younger I had to get 4 teeth pulled, and insurance didn’t cover the anesthesia so I just went without it, and it didn’t even bother me; I went and played a baseball game after, while my mouth was still bleeding. So from that pov some of these facts are kinda wild.
I like how these guys & gals add in the sponsors so smoothy.
Fun fact about redheads, during the reign of Elizabeth I in England it became fashionable for women to dye their hair ginger like the Queen, and a common way to do with was using wee...
Aged concentrated urine (the urea breaking down) is a source of ammonia. That's why it helped bleach hair
How interesting! It probably has to do with the ammonia in urine - and ammonia is still used in hair dyes today.
the first time i read this my StarTrek translator didn't work. i thought "a tiny WHAT?" only when i saw GoBlueGirl's comment did it "Click" that wee is another word for urine. Perhaps my Redhair pain receptors BLOCKED my painful comprehension....
@@GoBlueGirl78 Yep, urea breaks down into ammonia
@@GoBlueGirl78 It does.
Venetian* ladies on Corfu dyed their hair blonde with horse urine and sunlight. At the fortress museum in Corfu town there’s a crownless hat on display that was worn by one of these ladies to drape the hair on before the urine was rinsed out.
*Corfu was owned by the Venetians from the mid-14th century until the late 18th century.
Redhead here! Can confirm I have woken up during a surgery before. So has my biological mother (also redhead), and more than once. Can also confirm the inability to tan, both myself and said mother have tried and been unable to do anything but burn. And can also confirm the pain tolerance- my mother has had kidney stones, one of the most painful experiences a human can go through, and she was walking around like nothing was wrong. My redhead sibling has broken several bones and barely even complained about the pain during either the injury itself or the recovery for any of them. Interesting to hear they might all be connected. I wonder if the infamous "fiery temper" of redheads is also linked or just a myth.
I hate the pain chart. What level of pain is bending over and vomiting?
That would be a 10, I think. If you can't function, then it's a 10.
Please do a video discussing people with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and how they often need double (or more) the dose of anesthesia, compared to those without EDS.
6:23 Natural redhead, of all the painful things he could mention, a lego isn't high on my list. However, standing on a british plug (prongs up) is what seems to be equivalent to my non redhead friends. I can get an ankle sprain and that hurts but have had a broken finger and waited for over 2hrs sat in an ED with an icepack thinking I was fine and once the bleeding stops, I can go home. My fear of the dentist makes so much more sense now; I hate going as dentists never believe me when i say i feel that drill.
Very enlightening video!!
It Confirms so many things for me.
I am a light skinned Black person
(Think comedy actress Maya Rudolph)
however I am not mixed race nor were my parents.
I have hazel/green eyes, freckles
but Black head hair and a full ginger beard and ginger hair “down there”.
I never considered myself as having an abnormal pain tolerance ,being a male I ,just thought I was good at “Taking it like a man”.
A few years ago I experienced some extreme pain in my right upper arm near the shoulder to the point of needing a makeshift arm sling
A visit to my doctor and subsequent X-ray revealed bone remodeling from a “non displaced shoulder fracture” that was years old.
(by the time of the actual X-ray appointment the pain had fully subsided)
Except that I was never treated for such a fracture in the past, and I remember no specific event when it may have occurred ,so at some point in the past I literally broke my arm and just “shook it off” as they say.
More recently I had to get two adult rear molars extracted and indeed it required THREE TIMES the usual amount of injections before I was numb enough for the surgery.
Now I know why.
The real question is why are people subjecting more paint to redheads…
I learned about this when I had an ingrown toenail as a teen. After the normal amount of injections of localized anesthesia, I could still feel the scissors when they started sliding under my toenail. I told the doctor, and he said something along the lines of, "Right, you're a redhead. I'll have to give you another shot." He then gave me a brief explanation and fixed my toenail!
100% true. Quite a high pain tolerance. Also come out of anesthesia immediately instead of gradually. Instant wakefulness. Scared medical staff more than once, but no chance to be high as a kite saying weird stuff, so ha.
Similar situation here as apparently I'm brunette with some definite red genes. Was working night shift so went into wisdom tooth extraction dog-tired. Tanked it - local anaesthesia plus medium-strength sedative. Went into it feeling like I could still write a college essay. Physically felt some pain but just mentally felt like "to hell with it". Came out of it to enjoy a two-hour nap at home and went straight to quaffing coffee and playing games on my XBox like it was any other tooth extraction.
I have slightly reddish blonde hair and apparently a VERY high pain tolerance. I impressed my optometrist one time when he was floored that I wasn't feeling some mineral deposits on my contacts. With permission, he tried touching a q-tip to my eye. I actually watched the fibers compress against my cornea, but never felt any pain or desire to blink. Flip side - when I was developing sepsis due to an infected kidney stone, all I felt was tired. I went to the ER the day before with other symptoms, and they fortunately drew a blood culture, or I never would have known how very sick I was! Also, knowing the above, you can believe me when I say that pitocin during labor is the WORST. I didn't even feel my contractions before they gave me that, and afterward, I was vomitting and frantic from the pain.
I build tolerance to pain meds very quickly
Can confirm. In 5th grade I got my foot fileted by a chain link fence. Top half off my foot was peeled back revealing a nice chunk of flesh underneath, lost a tendon in that foot and still have a nasty scar from it. Held a smile and wave as they wheelchaired me off the field. My only complaint of pain was getting the 6 numbing shots at the hospital, everything else was super tolerable. (Sorry to Mt.View elementary kids who have to live without football because I slipped in the mud one day)
Red heads are best ❤
of course we are!
If only they had a soul.
I clicked on this video and I am leaving this comment solely to support the fact that you didn't try to force me into it by naming it "The SHOCKING TRUTH about redheads FINALLY REVEALED", but instead left completely up to me whether I wanted to by even giving the answer to the question right in the thumbnail. That is just absolutely refreshingly lovely of you! 🤗
Does this apply to people who have *some* red hair but aren't completely ginger or is it only true for flaming redheads? I'm curious because my mother and I both have some red hair, but have mostly brown/black.
Yelling by the comments it applies a bit to mixed red heads
So, based on the explanation from the video, it shouldn't work on you. The abscense of the other type of melanin is the problem. If you can produce brown melanin, you should be in balance and not have too much drug tolerance and have normal pain perception. But, if you can't produce brown melanin, that's when the imbalance occurs that causes this problem.
@@honaleri Meh, I'm a mixed melanin producer, and some of the red head stuff definitely applies to me. I am extremely sensitive to heat/the perception of heat, and easily get over heated, for example. I'm not sure about anesthesia and all that, because I've had so little experience. I do have a high pain tolerance, but I've always thought that was learned/built up (and a kind of "mind over matter" approach), so I'm not sure on that one.
@@justinw1765
Yeah, just pay attention to the video though. Redheads, the white kind that don't tan, are the people with the problem. Every human being produces both red and brown melanin, except for the non-tanning redheads, who only produce red melanin and this don't tan. And that's what creates the phenomenon of pain tolerance and opioid receptors resistance, because people who have red hair and no brown melanin have a mutation that prevents those receptors from working properly.
So, like, objectively, if you have brown melanin, this doesn't apply to you.
Yeah, the act of having high pain tolerance at all isn't solely linked to red hair. Nor is the act of having opioid resistance, solely linked to red hair, this is just a phenomenon that happens to cause both of these things for this specific reason....
So, yeah, you having red hair and brown melanin doesn't mean that you apply to what's happening in the video, but that doesn't mean its impossible for you to have high pain tolerance or what have you. There's many other things that cause this. smh
@@honaleriI have brown hair but I can't turn "tan." I would spent 8 hours a day out in the sun and people still thought I was extremely pale. Being able to produce brown in your hair isn't necessarily the same for your skin. Because you can produce some, but that isn't always enough.
Thank you for answering the question in the thumbnail. That way, I have the choice to view the video IF I want to learn more. OI would subscribe but I am already subscribed but keep it up.
I find redheads cool
I find them hot.😅
This is interesting and makes a lot of sense. My mom would always get concerned if I was complaining about pain, especially if I was crying, because she said she knew if I was asking for help then it was really bad. Apparently she was right lol
I’ve awakened during two surgeries due to not enough anesthetic. I’m not a redhead, but I am extremely pale.
Once for me, with a doctor that literally told me, "I know you're awake." That doctor got an earful when the tube came out of my throat.
It tends to happen when you have no soul.
Some thing people often forget or don't consider is that people with chronic pain like myself don't actually experience less pain we're just so used to a higher baseline of pain that when we experience worse pain we're so used to being in pain it gets less of a reaction
I love how it's okay to talk about hair color but not skin color
That’s actually interesting yea. Like if it was, “yt ppl have better pain tolerance” that would be received much worse
….? Well it’s not like skin color influences pain tolerance so why would we be talking about that? Also wtf are you even talking about, people talk about skin color all the time
You’re just a troll fishing for a reaction, aren’t you
Yep yep yep 😂
I'm a redhead and a hobby blacksmith, I've definitely noticed an increased sensitivity to heat compared to others. Though, I don't find that heat hurts me more, in fact I'm able to handle hotter objects than most people I know without feeling pain.
It's more like I'm sensitive to the sensation of heat, I have a much better understanding of how hot something actually is and if it's safe to handle and can tell quickly, where peers are more cautious
2:03 As a redhead, can confirm. I had to end up getting 8 shots of lidocaine over an hour before I got numb enough to do my fillings comfortably
I must secretly be a redhead then? My pain sensitivity is high, but my pain threshold is also very high. I don't know of anyone who doesn't get the conscious sedative to have an ablation. The sedative makes me sick, so I go without, and strangely enough, I felt less when I didn't have the sedative.
I couldn't feel the needles breach the many layers of tissue as the doctor inserted them into my medial branch nerves without the sedative, but I could feel the needles break through the skin muscle and dural layers independently when the conscious sedative was administered beforehand. The procedure was painless for me either way, though, making me wonder why sedatives are recommended and administered by default.
I'm glad you guys did another redhead pain video, because saying "redheads are babies when it comes to pain" in the last video was inaccurate and kinda insulting.
When I got my wisdom teeth removed I was given anesthetic and then they started cutting out my impacted teeth. I felt EVERYTHING. Before that I didn't really have any issues with dentists, probably because of having a higher pain tolerance. But after having gums cut and teeth pulled while not feeling numbed at all I understood what being tortured must feel like.
I am pretty sensitive to hot and cold though.
What about us that have a partial ginger beard(now turning white/golden but mousey brown hair
That's my case and it applies, maybe. I hit all the "symptomatic boxes" I know that when I bleached my hair as a teen I looked blond from the outset but my stylist confirmed I was a redhead because red bleaches much faster than the yellow of blonds by a huge margin. I would turn bleached in a handful of minutes. My beard is like tarnished copper, different from my dirty blond hair.
I'm a blonde with a a seemingly reccesive red hair gene and I definitely got the anti anesthesia gene first time I got a doctor to give me a higher dose I was shocked to find out your not supposed to feel anything while numbed apparently
There is only a small amount of Redhead Genetics in my Family Tree/Genes, but even without being a Redhead I can confirm through personal & other relative's experiences it is true that we have higher pain tolerances & need more drugs for medical procedures.
Earlier this year I had a cracked tooth that needed to be removed, the Oral Surgeon had to double the "Block" as well as quadruple the Novacaine & even then I still felt some of what they were doing during the removal as well as afterwards the tingling/semi-numbness only lasted maybe 2 hours at most. Other times I needed Dental Work or other medical procedures (I'm a 31 year old Man) similar things had to be done such as increasing anesthetic and/or stronger doses of pain relievers.
As for my siblings Novacaine & Lidocaine & other "Caines" don't work at all, and other medications that relieve/reduce pain also need to be increased dosages to get any effect.
I'm just glad scientists are thinking about pain at all. All they do is worry about who's taking
😱OPIODS!😱 instead of considering what a good portion of the population is enduring in their daily lives.
Nice, this is a really in-depth explanation but explained well enough for me to sort of understand. Not sure I'll be able to remember this as a conversation starter if I meet a cute redhead.
Blue eyes have better night vision
Red heads have better pain tolerance
Tell me more.
I felt less when the doctors did not administer sedative... during a nerve ablation.
I see better in the dark than my mother, who actually has bright blue eyes.
Everyone thinks I'm Asian and I possess a lot of features that would be considered phenotypically Asian from my appearance to my blood type, earwax, hair growth, and more. My parents swear that I am not adopted.
@@VariantAECYou typically see worse in the dark as you age so your mother seeing worse in the dark than you is to be expected.
@@filipbergman4232
She never remarked about seeing well in the dark, and I remember my mother not being able to see well in the dark when I was very young, meaning my mother was in her mid to late 20s. I'm in my mid-30s now, and lighting conditions my mother found difficult to manage when I was young are easier for me to manage with me being more than 5 years older than my mother was back then.
@@filipbergman4232
RUclips did not let me reply. What a shock... the tl;dr is that I can see better now in the dark than my mother when my mother was younger than I am now.
Stephan seemed particularly softly spoken in this video.
Whenever there is a discussion about Wisdom Tooth extraction, I can tell my story of having to use the Lamaze breathing technique in my Wisdom Tooth extraction: No amount of anesthesia the dentist put in my gums, no pain relief happened. While not a true redhead, I had a red-headed Mother who had red-headed siblings, so my bet is that I also have that red-headed gene thing going on. In my experience as a Certified Nurse-Midwife, I also observed that red-headed women got little relief from any local anesthesia for any repair needed and that red-headed women who underwent Cesarean Section also had resistance to any anesthesia needed for the surgery. This is a very common finding in childbirth.
Very interesting. I'm a black woman, and I have a high pain tolerance but then also require more numbing at the dentist. It's so cool to hear the science behind it.
Maybe you have a redhead gene! :)
When i had fillings in my teeth done as a child, i almost never used the numbing shots. Theyd give me like 5 or more of them, and even then id still feel them drilling away. If i was going to be in pain anyways, i might as well not have to desl with half of my face being numb for a few hours
Weird that your face did go numb. That would suggest that the nerves are sedated, so then why did you feel pain?
@theaxer3751 so from what I can remember, it did numb my sense of pressure and touch slightly during it, but not enough to even take off 25% of the pain from drilling. It wasn't until after I was already home that the numbness spread to my cheek and face
@@kinexkid One of my complaints with dental procedures is that they don't allow enough time for the numbing shots to take effect. I also feel the drill and nerve pain when having fillings, but an hour later at home my mouth and face are numb, properly! So now I self advocate and get them to apply the med before doing all the talking and explaining, and stall them on starting the procedure for a bit to give it a chance to work!
@lynettejwhite that's really smart, I can't believe I never thought to do that haha. Hopefully i don't need any work done on my teeth in the near future, bu5 if I do ill make sure to grt the shots far before they start
These studies are always so interesting to me. I, and every other redhead in my family, are extremely sensitive to all anesthesia and need a fraction of a normal dose. Opioids make me feel so sick, I put them on my allergy list. I do have a high pain tolerance though!
Not a red head but red beard and yeah dentists suck. Never get enough.
argh
@@the__man When I first read this I was confused. Its now been a few hours later and I now understand. lol
I always had trouble describing pain to doctors usimg the 1-10 pain charts with the smiley/frowny faces until I came across one that had descriptions that talked about how it affects your ability to focus on and do things.
I wonder how many "because they have no soul" jokes, and I use that term loosely, are going to be in the comments. As a black guy, I've never understood "ginger" jokes, I love redheads.
I'm a ginger and i have fun with it. "You don't have a soul haha". "I have many souls, they're in jars for when i get hungry 😈" 😂😂
It doesn't require you to understand it though
Yeah I also don't get it. Making fun of a group of people just based on how they look just isn't funny to me.
😂 A soul? I have alot. Everytime I get another soul it becomes a freckle.
In certain parts of Africa, redheads are considered evil, bad, etc.
(I have a theory that it may relate to ancient times when the Atlanteans, which were a technologically advanced and empire creating civilization, [sort of like modern day America] were conquering different peoples and lands. Some say the Celts [among some other groups] are descendants of the Atlanteans, whom Edgar Cayce source interestingly called the "red race". The Celts, or rather their descendants have the highest preponderance of reddish hair on the planet. Hence the peoples who experienced the domination and conquesting of the Atlanteans-some of whom may have looked very Celtic like, well it left a bad taste in their mouth very understandably.)
Another angle, as a Redhead myself, we go through a lot of severe bullying starting from a young age, we learn to dissconnect from pain, or simply learn to raise our field of tolerence for emotional and physical distress.
Who is "we" 😂
@@plwadodveeefdv 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I have always heard red heads feel more pain
Yeah I don't know what he's on about.
We feel more pain, but we have much greater pain tolerance.
Okay, I'll watch the rest of the video. I'm going to go with linguistic bias.
Scientists are calling it pain tolerance, they should be calling it pain endurance.
@@jtjames79Pain endurance -very good
@@jtjames79what does that even mean? Also he’s correct. Gingers feel less pain when it comes to, say, bumping your elbow, or something
As a disabled ginger I am so glad this is becoming more accessible info! Now I can just show my doctors this video instead of all the reassure papers. Lidocaine barely works and ive had multiple surgeries where I had to grin and bear it.
Yeah, Lidocaine is useless to me. It barely does anything to help with my pain. I am also disabled, and I'm a ginger.
Hmm, never thought about it before. I definitely feel pain, I'm just not a little crying baby about it. I hate mosquittos, though. They don't hurt, but they have to die. 🤔
I originally became aware of these differences a few years ago after googling it when it became clear to me that I didn't experience the world the same as people around me. A lot of increased pain sensitivity and dental anesthesia not working well are the main things I noticed. The difference in heat sensitivity between me and my wife is huge. I didn't know about the reduced pain sensitivity aspect but that could explain why I had no trouble sitting through a tattoo for hours.
Huh, weird. Everything I've seen for the past 20 years prior to this video has said redheads feel MORE pain than everyone else, not less.
That’s not what I’ve heard. Got a redhead sister, & her two boys (who are not redheads) but all have en extremely high threshold for pain. Kept her youngest wild child for six years & never heard him cry.
Well you haven’t been following the consensus in science then because I’ve seen the exact opposite
I am a redhead, and I feel more pain than everyone around me. And unlike what the video and many comments say, dentists use a fraction of the normal amount of anesthesia on me and I go loopy like I’m high or very drunk.
So I’m with you, and you’re with me, TJP!
I have strawberry blonde. My cousins range from auburn brown to bright red. I definitely have the redhead gene. I have a high pain tolerance, need more anesthesia and don’t respond well to some meds vs others.
I still think Ginger should be it's own ethnicity. I say this as a ginger 🤘
I'm going to recommend you looking to the history of that a little bit morem
Some say the Celts are descendants of the Atlanteans, along with other pockets of peoples like the Basques, Berbers, Guanches, etc. Interestingly, these groups all have an unusually high preponderance of Rh negative blood type, and more specifically unusually high occurrence of O- blood type (the "universal" donor).
Interestingly, Edgar Cayce's source said that the Atlanteans were the "red race" as distinct from the white, brown, black, and yellow (Asian).
Gingers can be Northern European, Eastern European, or even some southern Europeans, and maybe others if I’m not mistaken.
first time I had a dentist tell me that he had the 'redhead dose' ready for me was the first time I had a good experience at the dentist
Being called a ginger still hurts
Ginger is not an insult.
@@Sol_Badguy_GG yes it is
@@gabriellongworthbe proud of yourself you sound like a loser
i love redheads. somehow they're all look so pretty
Gingers too busy having more fun!
Sensitive to heat. So that is why I feel more comfortable in cold environments.
Dogs are actually less genetically diverse then Humans. Yet diverse in forms so how do diffine race in humans . More genetically diverse then dogs yet less physically different
Your last sentence says humans are less genetically diverse than dogs. Your first sentence says dogs are less genetically diverse than humans.
Just my two cents: my dentist is usually pretty good at redosing lidocaine when I need it, but when I got my wisdom teeth out they said they reached the max dose before they even had two teeth out. And when they switched to laughing gas, it barely worked and had almost no effect on my cognition.
Some time after, I watched a (now previous) scishow video on redhead anesthetic resistance and my parents told me I was born with red hair.
Also, I once got a nasty inch long cut that required three layers of stitches. (which I had to be persuaded to get since I was more afraid of the stitches than the cut which didn't hurt) And the doctor told me they reached the limit on allowed lidocaine during the second layer. Last layer sucked.
That dental thing is accurate for me, as a child I had a dentist fill a cavity without the lidocaine kicking in enough
It's cool seeing a video about this because I have a lot of experience with this throughout my life. For a recent example, I was having wrist surgery a few years ago, and the doctor actually gave me extra anesthetics because I knew they generally they don't work well on me, but even then about 10-15 minutes into the surgery, I regained full feeling in my arm. Not a pleasant experience.
I hadn't ever even heard of this until seeing this video.
I wonder if this could be another reason Viking warriors were so fierce on the battle field. Many had red hair or red mixed with others.
Thinking back to every time a dentist has refused to believe me when I try to inform of how ineffective the localized anesthesia was... I had to go double check what my hair colour is.
This explains a lot. I'm not a read head. (Normally. Seasonal hair, so red is a color i've been before.) But it's interesting because i have a high pain _resistance_ with a low pain _tolerance_. The low tolerance makes sense according to this video purely because i'm functionally immune to opiates, due to another condition i have. If pain tolerance is largely controlled through opiate receptor binding, then my high level of sensory pain would make sense.