paralysed people - would they need anasthetic?

[joko]

If a person is paralysed from the neck down, and needed surgery on their leg, would the doctors still numb them?

An would they be able to perform an operation on them while still awake, that they would usually have had to knock another person out for?

thanks

[Quizmonster]

The wife of a friend of mine has been in a wheelchair for decades, paralysed from the waist down. Recently, she broke an ankle...no-one is sure how...and had to have a pin inserted into the bone. I can assure you she was an�sthetised during the procedure. She wouldn't have felt anything without the drugs, but I can see how one might suffer shock on hearing what was being done to one's body, never mind what the medical team was saying! Can you imagine lying there, hearing the sawing, grinding, drilling or whatever and the surgeon demanding: "Scalpel! Chisel!...Hammer!" and so on?

[Goodsoulette]

funnily enough joko, when I was pregnant I needed an operation on my lower back, they decided a spinal anesthetic would be better. So in effected they paralysed me from the waste down, I could feel all the tugging and work they were doing just no pain. Made me feel yukky just recitibg that/

[Goodsoulette]

funnily enough joko, when I was pregnant I needed an operation on my lower back, they decided a spinal anesthetic would be better. So in effect they paralysed me from the waste down, I could feel all the tugging and work they were doing just no pain. Made me feel yukky just reciting that

[Impret-Sir]

Both of the above are correct, paraplegic patients can still have pain sensations transmitted to their brains, as it is the motor nerves not the sensory ones that are damamged. Ans many lower limb procedures are carried out under spinal or epidural anaesthesia, (and also ceasarian sections). This involves an injection of a local anaesthetic drug into or around the spine that has the effect of numbing the bits being worked on. If patients having this done dont like the noises, they can be given a sedative to let them drift off to sleep. Sometimes this can be given in an intraveinous pump that the patient can control, so if they get bored or have had enough of listning to the noises they can press a button and give themselves a dose to put them off to sleep. I have seen hip replacement operations where the patient was able to watch the operation being done on a TV screen next to their head. The surgeon gave a running commentary! You may be interested to know that the man who pioneered spinal anaesthetics operated on his own hernia after another doctor had administered the drug into his back! Thats confidence!

[joko]

but thought that some not only couldn't move their limbs but had no feeling in them at all - or is it just on tv that you could stick pins in a leg and not feel it?

[joko]

i only asked because it just occurred to me, no reason really

thanks for replies