How Getting On A Patient's Nerves Can Pay Off

January 11, 2008

Most patients who undergo surgery are given medicine to put them out

before the procedure, and pills to help them cope with the pain

afterwards. Now, an innovative approach may reduce the amount of

drugs you need, and the time it takes to recover. Before some

doctors make a single cut, they're using ultrasound machines to help

cut down on the pain.

Just weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a torn tendon in his

foot, Rolendo is already planning his next snowboarding

trip. He was afraid the pain would keep him on the couch for months,

but he's ready to hit the slopes.

" When I woke up from the surgery, I didn't feel any pain. I was

ready to get up and get out of the hospital, " says . The

reason Rolendo is doing so well after surgery is because of what

happened before it. Doctors at Ohio State University Medical Center

are helping to pioneer a new approach to surgery - one that delivers

numbing medicine directly to a patient's nerves with the help of

ultrasound machines.

" Using the ultrasound allows us to actually see what we're doing,

see where we need to go, see where the needle is traveling and make

it much more comfortable for the patient, " says Arbona, MD,

at Ohio State University Medical Center.

Normally, patients are given general anesthesia or drugs that affect

the entire body. The ultrasound machine allows doctors to find a

specific nerve in a patient's arm or leg, for example, then saturate

only that nerve with medicine. By focusing on a single nerve,

patients don't spend as much time in recovery, don't take as many

pain pills afterwards, and in some cases, doctors can even leave a

catheter in the patient to block the pain after they go home.

" It slowly drips on the nerve and it can continue giving numbing

medicine directly on that nerve for several days afterwards to

continue pain control, " says Arbona.

For Rolendo, the hardest part of the surgery was the anticipation.

After getting the ultrasound-guided nerve block, he says it was all

downhill from there.

Doctors say numbing a specific nerve can also help in rehabilitation

because a patient's motion isn't limited by pain. Right now, only

certain hospitals offer this technique because of the expertise

required to do it.

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