Local and regional anesthesia
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Intractable headaches can be debilitating, often leading to significant distress, prolonged medical treatment, and unanticipated hospital admissions. There have been significant advances in the treatment of primary intractable headaches such as migraines, tension headaches, and cluster headaches beyond medical management. Treatments may now include interventional strategies such as trigger-point injections, peripheral nerve stimulators, or peripheral nerve and ganglion blocks. ⋯ We report four cases of effective analgesia for intractable secondary headache resistant to medical management with high thoracic ESP blocks. In each case, the ESP block provided instant pain relief. We suggest that the findings of this case series indicate that the ESP block may be a useful intervention in patients with severe secondary headache or posterior cervical pain where conventional therapies have limited success, though more studies are necessary.
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The emergence from anesthesia is the stage of general anesthesia featuring the patient's progression from the unconsciousness status to wakefulness and restoration of consciousness. This complex process has precise neurobiology which differs from that of induction. Despite the medications commonly used in anesthesia allow recovery in a few minutes, a delay in waking up from anesthesia, called delayed emergence, may occur. ⋯ This paper aimed at presenting an update on the phenomenon, analyzing its causes. Diagnostic and therapeutic strategies are addressed. Finally, therapeutic perspectives on the "active awakening" are reported.
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Defined in the last decade, erector spinae plane block (ESPB) is one of the more frequently used interfacial plans, and it has been the most discussed block among the recently defined techniques. Lumbar ESPB administered at lumbar levels is relatively novel and is a new horizon for regional anesthesia and pain practice. In this article, we aim to explain and introduce different approaches and explain the possible mechanism of action of lumbar ESPB. ⋯ After a selection of the relevant studies, 59 articles were found eligible and were included in this review. While we believe that lumbar ESPB is reliable and easy, we suggest that its efficacy and indications should be verified with anatomical and clinical studies, and its safety should be confirmed with pharmacokinetic studies. Moreover, the possibility of complications must be considered.
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Laparoscopic abdominal surgery has become a mainstay of modern surgical practice. Postoperative analgesia is an integral component of recovery following laparoscopic abdominal surgery and may be improved by regional anesthesia or intravenous lidocaine infusion. ⋯ Aside from the locations of the surgical incisions, it is unclear what other factors should be considered when choosing one regional technique over another or deciding to infuse lidocaine intravenously. We reviewed the current literature in attempt to clarify the roles of various regional anesthesia techniques for patients undergoing laparoscopic abdominal surgery and present one possible approach to evaluating postoperative pain.
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Post-operative pain control following cesarean section delivery (CD) is an important topic of discussion given the lack of consensus on a narcotic-sparing analgesic regimen. We describe the case of an elective CD with narcotic-free pain control using continuous bilateral posterior quadratus lumborum (QL) blockade as the primary mode of analgesia. ⋯ The gold standard for pain control following CD is intrathecal morphine; however, its use has many adverse effects. Bilateral single-shot QL blocks following CD have been proven to decrease opioid consumption but its limited duration has minimal advantage over intrathecal morphine and patients continue to require oral narcotics for analgesia. With the use of QL catheters and a multimodal pain regimen, it may be possible to achieve opioid-free CD for the post-op period.