Acute Pain Management

Physicians with Anesthesia Medical Group provide acute pain management services to patients during and immediately following surgery.

Pain control after surgery contributes to the healing process. If pain is not adequately controlled following surgery, patients may not be able to do the things required to heal satisfactorily, such as taking deep breaths or getting out of bed and walking. Pain and resulting inactivity can lead to severe problems such as pneumonia or blood clots.

Many techniques are available that can help patients achieve high levels of comfort and safety following surgery.

Acute Pain Management during Surgical Recovery

Because the degree of pain varies greatly from patient to patient, a technique or procedure that might work well for one patient might not be effective for another. Our physicians recognize that the needs of patients vary so they tailor treatment approaches for each individual patient.

Techniques include oral medicines, nerve blocks, continuous epidurals, spinal blocks and narcotic infusions.

Intravenous Patient-Control Analgesia (IV PCA)

With the Intravenous Patient-Control Analgesia (IV PCA) pump, the patient has greater control over their pain. While the pump can be programmed to provide a certain level of continual pain relief, it can also allow a patient to increase pain medicine, within pre-set limits, by pushing a button. Many people find that they need less total medicine with a pump because they can control doses as needed.

Regional Analgesia

During regional analgesia a specific area of the body is targeted for pain relief. This type of pain control involves placing a needle near nerves supplying the affected area and then injecting a long acting local anesthetic. The needle placement usually can be done under sedation. Parts of the body that are amenable to nerve blocks include shoulder, wrist, hand, ankle and foot.

Epidural Analgesia

Epidural analgesia delivers anesthetic medication to nerves within the epidural space in the vertebra. We place a small tube or catheter so medication can be administered throughout surgery and beyond for comfort. After surgery, a pump can be attached which provides a continuous stream of medication. Frequently the patient can be given control over the dosing mechanism just as with the IV PCA.

We call this technique the patient-controlled epidural analgesia, or PCEA. This type of pain control is particularly well suited for major lower extremity procedures such as a total hip or knee replacement, certain abdominal or pelvic surgeries and childbirth. This technique is also especially useful following chest surgery.

Spinal Analgesia

When the surgical procedure is performed with a spinal anesthetic, a long acting narcotic is frequently added to the spinal medicine. This allows for pain relief in the immediate post operative period. Intravenous or oral medication will be provided when the spinal narcotic begins to lose effectiveness.

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