“If my anesthesia is delivered in the back, can its traces mix in the spinal fluid?”
If I am being given anesthesia for my C-section, is there a chance that the medication would leave traces in my spinal fluid?
13 Answers
No, medication is absorbed completely
The medicine only stays in the body for a specific amount of time without any left behind.
That is actually the goal when delivering a spinal anesthetic. We place local anesthetic into the spinal fluid to achieve the desired numbness at the level the medication is placed and below. The local anesthetic is completely metabolized in the spinal fluid in 1-4 hours, depending on which anesthetic is used.
Most medications we use in spinals are slowly absorbed back into your blood stream and then metabolized, gone after several hours. The one thing that can hang around are actual microscopic metal filings from the spinal needle, but to date there is no evidence that these tiny particles cause any long term problems.
Even though the drug is not injected directly in the spinal compartment, the drug gets absorbed in the blood and the spinal fluid. That is how it has the effect. The medication gets metabolised that is how the effect wears off. So, no traces are usually left in you body after it gets metabolisd and excreted
No, the medication I’m your spinal fluid will be eliminated by your body.
Dr Ketch
Dr Ketch
You can received either spinal anesthesia, epidural anesthesia, or combined spinal-epidural anesthesia for cesarean delivery. In all cases, medications can enter your spinal fluid either directly (spinal anesthesia) or via diffusion (epidural anesthesia) [which is how they produce numbness]; however, as the numbness wears of in the recovery room, so does the concentrations of spinal medications dissipate to zero [via diffusion out of the spinal fluid, and via circulation of spinal fluid and reabsorption]. After just a few hours, there are no traces of local anesthetic medications in your spinal fluid, but long-acting opioid medications such as morphine may persist for 20-24 hours (as it provides postcesarean analgesia for 20-24 hours).
Regional anesthesia for C-sxn is either a spinal or an epidural. Yes medications administered by any route will likely get into your CSF if it can pass the blood brain barrier.
A spinal anesthetic is delivered into the spinal fluid.
Yes.
Both epidural and spinal anesthetic agents are dependent upon the agent's presence in the spinal fluid. However, none of the local anesthetic agents will be recoverable even in trace amounts after a few days.
Did you have an epidural, spinal, or local iniltration?
In any case, unlikely that you still have anesthetic drugs which have any significant pharmacological or physiological effects at this time.
In any case, unlikely that you still have anesthetic drugs which have any significant pharmacological or physiological effects at this time.
No. Once it diffuses out of your cerebrospinal fluid and into your bloodstream, it is broken down and excreted by the kidneys or liver.
