When the doctor was giving me anesthesia, my thigh suddenly felt like it was electrocuted. Could it be hurt?

On Monday morning, the busy and orderly operating room suddenly became crowded.

She grabbed the nurse who was running over and found out that the patient in operating room 2 suddenly refused to continue anesthesia, and she had to rush to find the director of the anesthesiology department.

Seeing that the patient in his room had stable vital signs, he quickly ran to Operating Room 2 to see what was going on.

When we arrived at operating room No. 2, Dr. Li, who was in charge of anesthesia, was persuading the patient.

Looking at the patient again, he looked like he was frightened and was about to get off the operating table.

After asking Dr. Li, we found out that the nerve root might have been touched during the puncture. The patient suddenly felt as if his leg was electrocuted, and thought that the puncture was damaged, so he refused to cooperate no matter what.

As they were talking, the director arrived.

Seeing the leader coming, the patient's condition stabilized a lot.

After clarifying the situation, the director explained: It is common for spinal anesthesia to hit the nerve root, so don't make a fuss. If she feels that she cannot accept this anesthesia, she can be given general anesthesia, which will cost a little more money.

When the patient asked the director to guarantee that there would be no sequelae in his legs before he could continue anesthesia, the director agreed without hesitation.

After the patient was anesthetized, the operating room returned to its busy state.

Doctor Li, who had been holding back for a long time, actually wanted to persuade the director not to be so absolute. What if there were sequelae?

The director said: From your description just now, this was a simple incident of touching the nerve root.

How can we tell it is not a spinal cord injury? Dr. Li asked.

The director explained: If the spinal cord is injured, the patient will immediately feel severe pain. The pain is so strong that the patient may unconsciously scream "ah". Severe patients may have a transient loss of consciousness or loss of sensation below the injury level. Some patients may develop flaccid paraplegia.

Would that damage the nerve roots and make them irreversible?

Because the nerves that control the lower limbs are formed by multiple groups of nerve roots, even if one nerve root is damaged, there will generally be no movement disorder. If there is a nerve root injury, the sensory loss is limited to the skin area innervated by 1 to 2 spinal nerves.

How to avoid accidental injury during puncture?

First of all, the patient must not move. No matter what the situation is, the patient must not move. Only when the patient is still can the doctor's operation be accurate.

Secondly, the puncture point should be chosen lower rather than higher. Here, if both the lower lumbar and higher lumbar positions are available, try to choose the lower position. In theory, puncture above L2 has the risk of damaging the spinal cord. Once the spinal cord is damaged, the consequences are very serious.

Again, be gentle and do not puncture violently. Do not speed up the operation because you are in a hurry to continue the operation or get off work.

Finally, and this is also an important point: once the patient has a reaction in the waist or legs, do not blindly inject the medicine. Accidental puncture is an injury, and injection may be a more serious injury.

I would like to remind you that the anesthesiologist's operation is usually a blind exploration based on experience. Therefore, you must trust the doctor, cooperate with the doctor, and understand the doctor. No doctor will deliberately do something bad. If that were the case, the medical community would not tolerate him. If an unexpected situation occurs, actively cooperating with the treatment can also achieve satisfactory results.

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