Local anaesthesia also involves the injection of local anaesthetic
agents, but in this case smaller amounts are given to produce
numbness only in the area where they are injected. Regional
anaesthesia, by contrast, anesthetizes large areas of the body
distant to the site of injection.
Typically local anaesthesia injection is performed by the surgeon
for operations involving relatively small parts of the body. More
often in surgery of the knee and shoulder, we infiltrate local
anaesthesia into the wounds while the patient is asleep so that when
they awake from the operation they are feeling minimal pain,
lessening the need for strong narcotic anaesthesia.
It should be noted that most operations we perform are not feasible
under local anaesthesia. This is because local anaesthetic drugs,
like most drugs, have limitations with respect to their safe usage.
Each drug has recommended a maximum dosage, and if adequate numbness
cannot be achieved within these guidelines then additional
anaesthesia plan should be considered.
