- Joined
- Mar 23, 2019
An epidural, eh? She had major fucking surgery and could only have spinal anesthesia because she's too fucking fat to go under general.
Obesity is frequently associated with challenges during anaesthesia. Following this, the use of regional anaesthetic techniques for obese patients is increasing in popularity as this offers distinct advantages over general anaesthesia for these patients. Regional anaesthesia (RA) offers several advantages when treating obese patients, including minimal airway intervention, less cardiopulmonary depression, improved postoperative analgesia4, 5, decreased opioid consumption, decreased postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) 5, 6, and therefore reduced post-anaesthesia care unit (PACU)7 and hospital length of stay5. Moreover, RA has been associated with improved postoperative analgesia5, particularly when long-acting local anaesthetics 8, or continuous peripheral nerve blocks9, are used. Despite these advantages, RA can be technically challenging in the obese. These challenges are related to difficulties in patient positioning, identifying the usual bony and muscular landmarks, and the depth of needle penetration2. However, the limitations of regional anaesthesia and the technical difficulties encountered with its use in obese patients must be carefully considered.