VR for Pain Distraction — 3 Hour Tattoo Session Test
I have been working in VR for the last three years and have personally seen VR used effectively for pain management purposes many times. I actually (for a short while) co-founded a company focused on using AR as a pain and emotion management tool for children in hospitals. I trust that VR and AR can help manage and distract uncomfortable pain, but how much pain, and for how long?
I recently signed up for a three hour tattoo session, and thought it would be the perfect moment to experiment on myself to determine whether VR works to manage discomfort during a tattoo session, and whether VR works better than other methods, such as listening to audiobooks or music.
The first hour of the tattoo I sat with my Oculus Go and played two variants of content. I began by playing an interactive game that was also geared to being meditative, called Nature Treks VR. While the game was beautiful and I had fun tossing around flowers and trees and watching animals walk by, my favorite scene was the under water experience, for a more meditative experience. It brought me into the most relaxed state and let me put the controller down and just watch dolphins swim by. While I could still feel the tattoo, I was also far removed from the situation the tattoo session was completely bearable.
After about 30 minutes in Nature Treks VR, I tried my hand at good old Netflix. I positioned the screen to hover above me, so that I could lay back and just relax and watch the show. I watched The Office, and soon enough I was laughing away and had completely forgotten I was actually getting a tattoo (and maybe should have stopped moving with the giggles). I could still feel the tattoo, but it didn’t bother me in the slightest. The feeling of the tattoo was more like an inquisitive “something” tugging my attention away from The Office.
After an hour in the Oculus Go I noticed some things that, unfortunately, made me want to take the headset off. I had become warm and the headset was quite foggy, and because I had to lay still for the tattoo I couldn’t adjust the headset when needed. It had actually became quite uncomfortable, to the point where I had to ask the tattoo artist to stop so I could take the headset off completely. I think that adrenaline runs high when you are getting tattooed, so maybe that was the reason for the extreme fog.
The second hour, in order to get a good comparison, I focused on audiobooks. I have been listening to the Game of Thrones audiobook, so I dove right in. The reader of the audiobook is the calming and very inviting Roy Dotrice, and within seconds my mind was lost inside the wide world of Westeros, and my attention was as far from the tattoo pain as it could be. As soon as I realized how much I wasn’t hurting, I pulled out a headphone and asked my tattoo artist if the spot she was currently covering a less painful spot, and to my surprise, she said that where we currently were tattooing was normally one of the more painful areas.
On the last and third hour, I reluctantly switched to music. I say reluctantly because I was in so little pain, and I wanted so badly to know what happened next in the chapter, that I didn’t want to switch the audiobook off. (I will note: I listen to audiobooks everyday, so maybe my brain slips more easily into other worlds than others might). Listening to music was nice, and I noticed that the calmer the songs, the better and more effective the music as a pain management tool. Overall though, I really needed to focus on the music in order to relax, and I could feel my body tense up from the pain. It might have been because I had already been tattooed for two hours, but music just didn’t cut it for me. After 30 minutes of my favorite playlist, I switched back to my audiobook and the time flew by.
Verdict
The winner is my own imagination paired with an audiobook: it caused my brain to run free and my vision to fog over. Maybe it also had to do with the content of the book, so be sure to pick a cliffhanger if you go with this option. Second choice, VR: yes I had fun, yes it was great to be able to watch a show without visual interruption, and yes I got to play games and use my brain rather than focus on the pain - but I was still present enough in the moment to feel the tattoo. Third, music: the music made my adrenaline pump faster and my heart skip with the beat, which was not calming. I had to try very hard to focus on my breathing in order to ignore the pain of the tattoo.
A HUGE shoutout to Modern Electric in Berkeley, and my amazing tattoo artist Tayah Blanck (instagram name: fill_in_blancks). They were amazing and Tayah made a masterpiece and was patient with me while we did our tests.
