Understanding Local Anaesthesia
These days surgery has become a common method for handling medical problems. As in past when operation use to be dreaded procedure with a high mortality of death and complication rate. But these due to the advancement in technology death and complication rate has come down.
These days surgical procedure have not only become safer but has become relatively pain free compared to past. Therefore credit not only goes to advance surgical technology but also to safe anesthesia and quick recovery from its after-effects.
While considering what kind of anesthesia should be given to patient usually depend on the procedure which is going to be performed. On the other hand physical and emotional status of patient also depends on what kind of anaesthesia should be given to patient as what type of anaesthesia is safer for patient.
Anaesthesia can be administrated mainly by three techniques:
1. General or total anaesthesia in which the patient as a whole is put to sleep.
2. Regional anaesthesia in which it focuses on area to operated upon is blocked to sensation.
3. Local anaesthesia in which only the operation site is anaesthetized facilitating a pain-free surgical procedure.
Let’s understand what local anaesthesia procedure in detail. There are number of techniques available for giving local anaesthesia.
1. First one is done by infiltration of a chemical agent in the concerned area, which produce loss of sensation so that operation can be performed without causing discomfort or pain to patient. The commonest drug used is Lidocaine in the injection form can be diluted and used in the strength of 0.5 % to 2.0% the effects last about 30 to 45 minutes.
2. The addition of Adrenaline prolongs its effective time for 60 to 70 minutes; and the addition of Hyalurinase extends its area of effectiveness. On the other hand newer drugs such as Etidocaine in the concentration of 8mg/kg with Adrenaline can provide satisfactory local anaesthesia for about 120 minutes to 180 minutes.
3. Then comes Ring block- A local anaesthesia agent is used in the form of circumferential ring so that the sensation below the block are blunted. Therefore this kind of anaesthesia is commonly used for fingers.
4. Then comes Tumescent techniques- in this a large amount of anaesthetic drug is used in diluted concentrations (0.05-0.1%) with Adrenaline (1:1,000,000). The anaesthesia concentration is extremely small, allowing large amount of solutions to be used without reaching toxic levels and, therefore, it is quite safe.
Therefore patients remain completely alert during local ….. Read More
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