Rebecca Sager, senior vice chairman of improvement for HealthyWomen, was within the prep room on the hospital on the brink of ship her first little one when the nurse got here in and requested her an odd query. “Are you an actual redhead?”
“You’re going to search out out in a minute,” Sager quipped, realizing the nurse was there to see how dilated she was. Sager is, in actual fact, an actual redhead. Or as she put it, the carpet matches the drapes.
Pure redheads are uncommon — lower than 2% of the inhabitants. Was the nurse so taken by Sager’s firey mane that she needed to know if it was actual? In all probability. However she additionally requested as a result of, if Sager’s hair coloration was pure, it meant she may have extra pain management throughout labor.
“I’d by no means heard that earlier than,” Sager mentioned.
Do redheads have a better ache tolerance?
There is a rising physique of research that reveals that individuals with pink hair expertise ache in a different way in comparison with individuals of different hair colours. The jury’s nonetheless out as to why this can be, however one concept has to do with the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) gene.
All individuals with pink hair are born with a mutation of the MC1R gene. That is not solely what offers them flaming locks of auburn hair, however, in response to a 2021 study, it additionally reduces the operate of the gene. And people modifications have an effect on the steadiness between ache sensitivity and tolerance.
Total, analysis on redheads helps the seeming contradiction that they’ve a better tolerance for ache normally, however they’ve elevated sensitivity to sure forms of ache.
For instance, one study discovered girls with pink hair had been extra delicate to temperature-related ache in comparison with girls with darkish hair. However one other study discovered that individuals with pink hair had been much less delicate to ache by electrical shocks.
The variations do not cease on the means redheads understand ache. Additionally they reply to ache medicine in a different way. Given the vary of ache sensitivity and several types of ache, ache administration can current challenges for individuals with pink hair. Studies present redheads might require larger doses of some forms of non-opioid ache relievers. However, the 2021 research talked about above discovered that redheads could also be extra delicate to opioids and wish much less medicine to cease ache.
The sensitivity to opioids could also be much more pronounced in girls. One study discovered that ladies with two mother and father who’ve learn hair — that means they’ve two variant MC1R genes — had considerably larger ache tolerance and considerably larger sensitivity to opioids.
Rebecca Sager, rocking her pink locks, 2023
Do redheads want extra anesthesia?
The analysis on whether or not redheads want extra anesthesia is restricted, however in the event you speak to girls with pink hair, you could hear anecdotal proof that they require extra anesthesia. Why? The idea is again to the MC1R gene mutation, which results in a decreased response to anesthesia, so extra is required. One study discovered that ladies with pink hair required virtually 20% extra anesthesia for sedation in comparison with girls with darkish hair.
Della Lin, M.D., an anesthesiologist and secretary of the Anesthesia Affected person Security Basis, famous that the analysis relating to redheads and extra anesthesia comes from smaller research, so it is probably not one thing your healthcare supplier (HCP) thinks about straight away.
Lin encourages individuals with pink hair — and everybody else — to convey up any considerations about anesthesia or ache administration earlier than the process. “I’d maintain that thought in the best way again of my thoughts [that you have red hair], however I am not going to extend something by default,” Lin mentioned. “So it is good to know in the event you’ve seen that you simply’re delicate to opioids … as a result of everyone seems to be slightly bit completely different.”
Jackie Wexler, a center faculty trainer with curly scarlet-red hair, mentioned she had no clue her hair coloration was tied to her response to medication. However trying again, common OTC ache drugs have not executed a lot for her menstrual cramps or her headache assaults. “Now I’ve the worst migraine attacks and nothing helps,” she mentioned.
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It is sensible to her that the excessive ache tolerance and excessive tolerance to sure painkillers is genetic. She mentioned her sister, who additionally has pink hair, wanted extra ache medicine than they’d give her when she gave beginning.
Sager is now conscious of her actual redhead standing and tries to get her HCPs on the identical web page relating to any ache medicine or anesthesia she may have. Nonetheless, some suppliers do not assume the connection between redheads and ache is true. When Sager went in for a colonoscopy, she instructed her anesthesiologist that she wanted a better dose. She pointed to her head. He mentioned she did not. So when the nurse got here in and requested why she was nonetheless coherent and sitting up, Sager did not mince phrases. “I am a redhead. I am completely different.”
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