Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
The effect of temperature on the discomfort caused by topical local anaesthesia.
The warming of local anaesthetic solutions to reduce the pain felt on injection is common practice in a number of medical sub-specialties. A study was undertaken to assess the effect of temperature on the discomfort caused by local anaesthetic eye drops. Tropical anaesthetics amethocaine 1%, oxybuprocaine 0.4% and lignocaine 4% were studied, and after the application of strict exclusion criteria 60 patients were selected, 20 patients for each anaesthetic. ⋯ A 10 point visual analogue scale was used to assess the discomfort experienced. No statistically significant difference was found between the discomfort caused by drops at each temperature for any of the three anaesthetics studied. There appears no benefit in warming topical anaesthetic agents prior to their use.
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Domestic animals share our environment in a variety of ways. One of these ways is as companions in and around our homes. ⋯ Sharing our environment with such animals has a profound effect on the health of the humans concerned. As keeping companion animals is a very widespread activity, about 50% of all households in the Western world have some sort of animal, the effects are far reaching.