Alexander Konigsberg - General Surgery
Date Published: November, 2023
It is not shocking that most people feel some degree of pain following a surgery. In fact, 80-86% of patients report having pain following a procedure (Ghai et al., 2022). Doctors and medical researchers are constantly looking for better ways to relieve postoperative pain. Opioids are a class of medications that doctors can prescribe. Although opioids are very good at relieving pain, they have strong side effects including nausea and sleep disturbances. They are also very addictive and dangerous if used differently than prescribed. “Opioid sparing strategies for perioperative pain management other than regional anaesthesia: A narrative review” by Ghai et al. (2022) reviewed 78 studies involving opioid sparing, or methods to lower the number dosage of opioids (Ghai et al., 2022). To avoid using heavy opioids, a multimodal analgesia method has been proposed, where doctors use several different methods of pain management, rather than just opioids. This study found that the most common methods involve a mixture of pharmaceuticals like steroids, anti-inflammatories, anticonvulsants, beta-blockers, and injections of pain relievers during surgery.
Understanding the best methods of managing pain relief following surgery would benefit the millions of individuals who undergo surgery each year. In the past few years, opioid sparing techniques have been explored in every medical field, which is why narrative review’s such as the Ghai et al. (2022) paper are important. A potential benefit to this research is that many of the treatment modalities, like NSAIDs (Ibuprofen) and Acetaminophen (tylenol), are cheaper than prescription opioids, so a decreased dose could save patients money. The other modalities can also have less severe side effects than opioids, so ideally an opioid sparing technique would lead patients to feel even better after a surgery than with opioid use long term. While the exact dosages and methods are still unknown, the future of postoperative pain management is heading away from opioids.
References Cited
Ghai, B., Jafra, A., Bhatia, N., Chanana, N., Bansal, D., & Mehta, V. (2022). Opioid sparing strategies for perioperative pain management other than regional anaesthesia: A narrative review. Journal of Anaesthesiology Clinical Pharmacology, 38(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.4103/joacp.JOACP_362_19
Macro of oxycodone opioid tablets. (n.d.). Depositphotos. Retrieved November 27, 2023, from https://depositphotos.com/photo/macro-of-oxycodone-opioid-tablets-137871552.html
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