18 Jul Reduce the Need for Traditional Pain Medicine
Pain Management after Plastic Surgery
Surgeons are constantly trying to improve various aspects of surgery. We constantly look at how we can improve results by challenging standard thinking and look for ways to improve. The same can be said for how we treat pain that is caused by the surgery itself. Long gone are the days of “one anesthesia for all types of procedures.” Today we try and tailor various types of anesthesia to fit best with specific procedures. Likewise post-operative pain is approached in a very different more thoughtful way today. In the past everyone would be given opioids for post-surgical pain (i.e., Percocet or Vicodin). We now try and neutralize post-surgical pain through a variety of consecutive approaches. Some of these treatments are various types of local pain medicine in the form of long acting numbing medicine that is either injected into the area during surgery or infused in the first few days following surgery. This can be coupled with strong anti-inflammatory oral pain meds that are taken following surgery. All of this tends to cut down or eliminate the need for traditional opioids which also cuts down on all the complications associated with these drugs (i.e., nausea, vomiting and constipation.)
Pain Management Studies
A new study presented by Michael Edwards, MD, president-elect of the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery presented the use of long acting numbing medicine injected at the time of surgery. The study focused on 49 patients injecting the pain medicine at 10 different sites. The medication (named Exparel) is indicated for administration into the surgical site and is said to deliver therapeutic levels of local pain medicine over the first 72 hours post-op.
Bottom line, the patients all reported very low levels of pain, low need for traditional opioid pain medicine and very high satisfaction.
I have used this as well as other delivery methods of local pain medicine post-operatively. I feel that it’s so “old fashioned” to not make use of these newer methods. Most importantly my patients deserve this type of cutting edge treatment.
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