Are all local anesthetics administered in the same way?

Are all local anesthetics administered in the same way?

Samuel Seelig (Anesthesiologist, Los Angeles, California) gives expert video advice on: When is local anesthesia most often used? and more...

Local anaesthetics can be administered in many different ways. It can be used by the surgeon just in a small field block in the area that he will exsize. Local anaesthetics are also used during regional anaesthetic techniques, whether it be spinal or epidural or caudal, it will be placed in the spinal canal in a small concentration to make the patient numb from the waist down. It will be used in larger volumes in the epidural space to accomplish the same area of numbness, or it can be placed in the caudal canal to operate on the paranium itself. It can be given locally or it can be given in the neuraxis in the epidural and spinal canal. Local anesthetics can also be given intravenously. Some procedures on the extrremities the arms and the legs can be performed with what they call a "beer block". A tourniquet is placed on the extremity which is then ensanguined. It is wrapped tightly so that the blood in the vessels is pushed out, the tourniquet is inflated and the the vessels are filled with local anaesthetics. The local anaesthetic will defuse into the extremity and make it numb for surgical intervention.