W
ith opioid-
sparing pro-
tocols firmly
positioned as
the standard
for managing post-op pain, sur-
geons and anesthesiologists have
become masters of multimodal
analgesia, perfectly combining a
little bit of this and a little bit of
that to send satisfied patients
home in as little pain as possible.
With that in mind, here are the
key strategies that should be a
part of your facility's pain man-
agement efforts.
• Regional anesthesia. For
notoriously painful procedures,
nerve blocks — delivered via a
single-shot block or continuously
through the aid of a pain pump —
have become a staple of opioid-
sparing techniques in recent years.
And for good reason. These
blocks provide sufficient analgesia
for 24 to 48 hours after surgery
and, in some cases, even longer.
That's a critical window for
managing post-op pain caused
by tissue inflammation following
the trauma of surgery. The
inflammation maxes out in 48
hours and then rapidly decreas-
es, says Ashish Sinha, MD, PhD,
DABA, MBA, FASA, a professor
at the University of California
Riverside, and designated insti-
tutional official and program
director of anesthesiology at UC
Riverside/Riverside Community
3 6 • O U T P A T I
E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 1
The Pillars of Post-Op Pain Control
Combining regional anesthesia with the right multimodal
drug cocktail keeps patients' discomfort to a bare minimum.
EXTENDED PLAY For notoriously painful procedures such as total joint replacements, long-acting local anesthetics can
give patients effective relief during the initial post-op recovery.
Pamela
Bevelhymer
Jared Bilski | Managing Editor
