Post-operative Pain Control Flashcards
What causes post-op pain?
Inflammation
- reaction of vascularised living tissue to local injury
- injury may be caused by microbial infection, physical agents, chemicals, necrotic tissue
- contain and isolate injury, destroy invading micro-organisms and inactivate toxins
What are the signs of acute inflammation?
Heat, redness, edema, pain and loss of function
Describe the surgical/clinical factors causing post-op pain
1) difficulty of procedure
- deep impaction, bulbous roots, texture of bone, amount of bone removal required, size of flap raised
2) presence of inflammation or infection present at time of procedure
Describe the operator factors causing post-op pain
- Experience and competence
- Duration of operation
- Handling of tissue
Describe patient factors that cause post-op pain
- Subjective
- Depends on past experiences, emotional, cultural and social factors
- Compliance with post-op instructions, medication intake
- Individual response to analgesics (pharmacokinetics)
How to achieve pain relief?
- Patient factors
- Surgical factors (good LA)
- Medications
How to achieve effective pain relief with LA?
- good technique
- articaine (concentration of LA)
- Long acting LA on completion (bupivacaine)
Name the 3 types of medications for pain relief
- Simple analgesics
- NSAIDs (non-selective COX inhibitors and selective COX-2 inhibitors)
- Narcotics
Describe acetaminophen
Aka tylenol/ paracetemol
- mild to moderate pain
- effective anti-pyretic agent
- weak prostaglandins inhibitor
- no anti-inflammatory effect
- metabolised by liver
- symptoms include dizziness, excitement, disorientation (large doses)
- 15g toxic amount (fatal due to hepatic toxicity symptoms - diarrhoea, vomiting, abdominal pain)
List NSAIDs (non-selective and selective COX-2 inhibitors)
Non-selective: (common)
- ketorolac
- mefenamic acid
- ibuprofen
- naproxen
- Indomethacin -> joint pain (less common)
- Diclofenac
- aspirin (used more for anti-platelet effect than analgesic)
Selective:
- Celecoxib (common)
- Etoricoxib
Describe the action and effects of NSAIDs
- inhibit synthesis of prostaglandins in the endo peroxide pathway
- side effects: dyspepsia (indigestion), gastric mucosal damage, increased bleeding
*prostaglandins helps to maintain renal blood flow, gastric mucin production, mucosa protection and maintenance of platelet function BUT causes pain, inflammation, fever
Describe the characteristics of Aspirin
- analgesic
- anti-inflammatory
- antipyretic
- anti-thrombosis
- mild to moderate pain
- non selective COX inhibitor -> COX-1 inhibition undesirable (not used for post-op analgesic)
Describe the characteristics of ibuprofen
- Analgesic
- Anti-inflammatory
- Anti-pyretic
- Non selective COX inhibitor (peripheral prostaglandin inhibition)
- Mild to moderate pain
- 400mg every 4-6 hourly
- may combine with narcotics drug for severe pain
Describe the characteristics of naproxen
- Analgesic
- Anti-pyretic
- Non-selective COX inhibitor
- Mild to moderate pain
- Propionic derivatives
- Extended half life (10-20h)
- Dosage 550mg twice daily
Describe the characteristics of ketorolac
- Analgesic
- Antipyretic
- Pain control comparable to morphine but without side effects
- Parental dose: 30mg IV, 60mg IM (healthy patients 50kg and above)
- Repeat dose every 6h, max dose should NOT exceed 120mg
- Follow up with oral dose 20mg, then 10mg 4-6h after, max dose 40mg