How Do I Make The Choice Between Local And General Anesthesia During Liposuction?

Something one can expect when going in for surgery is that an anesthetic will be used

. Anesthetics cause an area of the body, or the entire body, to be numbed so that a patient cannot feel pain. When getting liposuction, it is safest to use only local anesthesia in which the affected area is numbed. Using general (or systematic) anesthesia is not safe for this surgery and isn't normally used.

Anesthesia makes surgery possible by blocking the patient's ability to feel pain. That's pretty nice, but using anesthetics can also be dangerous.

Although there are some dangers associated with any surgery, this article will focus on liposuction and the particular dangers of anesthesia associated with it.

Liposuction involves the removal of fat from small areas of the body. Of course it can only be done with the use of anesthesia.

Websites and even surgeons themselves will usually give the patient the choice between different kinds of anesthesia.

When general anesthesia is used, the patient is completely unconscious during the surgery. In the case of local anesthesia, the patient is awake and only the affected area is numbed.

It may not sound pleasant to be awake during surgery, but there are some major advantages.

To begin with, some people respond badly to general anesthesia and have a several reaction that can cause death. Although rare, it can happen, especially if medication doses are not correct.

But a more serious risk with liposuction in particular is that unconscious people cannot report to the surgeon how they feel.

Sometimes mistakes are made during surgery and body tissues are damaged. The surgeon may not be aware that a mistake has been made.

If a patient is awake, they will usually have symptoms when something goes wrong. They will suddenly feel dizzy or nauseated or have pain near the numb area.

When awake, the patient can tell the surgeon what they are experiencing. Sometimes the body goes into shock when it has been in surgery too long, and the surgeon must stop, regardless of the amount of fat that has been removed.

This patient feedback is essential to the safety of the surgery, and it makes local anesthesia so much safer than general anesthesia.

The other problem with general anesthesia is that it is often used when patients want to have multiple procedures done at one time. Whether they want to have fat removed from several areas or they have liposuction at the same time as other cosmetic surgeries, this is a bad idea.

The body cannot handle so much trauma and many of the complications associated with liposuction happen when surgeons attempt to do too much at one time.

Overall, it is safer and smarter to have local anesthesia and to minimize the amount of work being done on the body in one setting.

by: Christian Heftel

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