Spinal anesthetic?

During my pre-op, the Dr. told me that they usually use a spinal anesthetic for pain relief (in addition to general anesthesia for the surgery), instead of the morphine pump. I have always been afraid of having anything stuck into my spinal column. Please tell me your experience with this. She said I could choose not to have this. But then again, I am very sensitive to "heavy" drugs, and I wonder about the effects of them. Should I have the spinal?? Thursday is my day!

Jan

Chickenlady,
Hello fellow Thursday LIW. It varies from person to person so you have to do what you feel will be best for you!
I have issues with general anesthesia so have chosen on Thursday to have no general anesthesia and to have the spinal anesthisia with morphine pump for pain relief. There are chances as with all things... concerning the spinal: the only one that I am familiar with is spinal headaches which are easily cured by drawing blood from your arm and putting it in the spine to clot/close the hole that is creating the headaches. That happened to me years and years ago, and due to monitoring never got out of hand and was dealt with immediately.
One of the things I have noticed in the various posts I have read over the past few months... do NOT let the pain get ahead of you. If you feel pain, do something about it, do not think you can work your way through it as it may come to "bite you in the buttox" later! Hopefully others will have other information for you!
Good Luck! Will keep you in my thoughts and prayers!
Linda

Hi CHickenLady,

I had a spinal for 3 days post-op as well as a general for the surgery. The upside is that you feel absolutely no post op pain. The down side is ---1) you have very limited mobility when you have a "walking epidural" (no, you cannot walk, you can't even stand unassisted) 2) if your epidural is in for any length of time you have to wear anti-blood clot pants (sorry I forgot the real term for them) until the epi is removed. They are these air-chambered pants that inflate different chambers at different times to stimulate circulation because of the risk of developing a blood clot due to immobility. 3) the worst 'down side' for me was that I was left with nerve damage that feels like painful pins-n-needles in my right thigh. Again, there is a name for this, but I am in an insomnis induced fog --sorry. They say the pins-n-needles are 'temporary', but I am going on 7 months post op from a TAH and the thigh is every bit as painful. This does not happen to all epidural patients, however.

I think the best way to decide if/if not to have a spinal should be based on your ability to tolerate pain and pain meds. In my case I have to have specialized anesthesia so it was almost a no-brainer. The anesthesiologist will be administering the spinal, and I would definitely speak to him/her in pre-op BEFORE you have even the first bit of tranquilizer. One way or another, Linda's advice to keep the pain at bay is great advice. They don't hand out any prizes for heroism, in fact, pain relief is proven to speed recovery so take the drugs as soon as you get pain. Pain is information.

God be with you, and your surgical team.

well, i've tried both morphine as well as an epidural, and (this is just my opinion) i found the epidural a lot easier to handle.

when i had morphine for the removal of my right ovary, i was very dizzy and basically out of it. i was put in a high dependancy bed and i was hallucinating... in other words. not very fun at all

when i finally got the hysterectomy, i had an epidural, and alhtough it was not fun having it put in, afterwards i felt as though i could get out of bed and walk around. i was alert and not dizzy at all. i was out of bed the next morning and although i needed help movng around, i was in no pain at all, compared to the morphine, which was not as effective in pain management.
that operation was really easy for me to get through because of the epidural.

your anaesthetist will talk to you about your options.

I would definetly recomend you to have the spinal, I did and besides having to wear the pressure pump boots on my legs (for circulation), I feel it was the best decission I made. I had the surgery on tuesday morning and they removed it on thrusday, so for almost 3 days I didn't feel any pain, after that they gave me toradol shots and percocet (the best) for home which I took for a few days, after that I just took aleve two times a day.
Now, I did also have a tummy tuck and lipo along with my SAH, so I did have more pain than normal, but please do anything you can, to avoid pain, that is the key to star feeling normal, with all the advance pain killers we have now, there is no reason to suffer. Please e-mail me if you have any specific questions, I check my e-mails often and I'll try to answer you asap.
Best of luck!

Hi there,

I had an epidural, (NOT a spinal), for pain relief after surgery.
I had absolutely no pain, and thought it was wonderfull!
I would recommend it to anyone!

Maria

I too had a spinal after surgery. It was awesome. The circulation boots can be a pain, but they were worth it. I had TAH on Monday May 10 and they removed everything on Wed. After that I had a couple of morophine shots and percocet. 8 days post op, I am pretty much taking only Ibruprofin 800.

I had a laprotomy 2 1/2 years ago for endo and did not have the spinal. Sure wish I would have!