Many people have questions about why anesthesia is needed. In many cases the clinic does not use a general anaesthetic to do liposuction meaning can go home without having to sleep at all.
Before knowing if anesthesia is really necessary for liposuction, let's look at all the pain relief methods
There are 3 main types of pain relief in surgery, which can be used together to make the patient feel as comfortable as possible.
Local anesthesia is injecting anesthesia into the area to be operated. The patient will know 1. The surgery area felt pressure and movement but no pain.
2. Intravenous anesthesia injection to make the patient unconscious. The patient will not be unconscious but totally unaware of anything. There is no breathing tube.
3. General anesthesia, the patient is totally unconscious.
The method of anesthesia depends on the area being operated on. Let's compare the advantages and disadvantages, one by one to make it more understandable.
The advantages of local anesthesia:
The patient will be conscious throughout the surgery. So there are no risks involved with other anaesthetic methods such as breathing tubes. You can go home the same day because there is no residual drug that suppresses breathing in the body.
Disadvantages of local anesthetics
The patient will be awake so people that are very worried about the surgery may be worried or afraid during liposuction and may have to cancel halfway or need to give additional intravenous drugs.
When sucking out fat near a muscle there may be pain making surgery difficult.
Advantages of intravenous injections
The patient is unconscious and unaware of anything that is happening.
Disadvantages of intravenous injections
Even though the patient is totally unconscious there may be sleepwalking, talking and other activities making the surgery difficult.
The advantages of anesthesia
the patient is unconscious and no sleepwalking moving limbs when sleeping make the surgery have better results
Anesthesia, the patient has a tube. And a ventilator to take care of breathing. Chances of having apnea problems during surgery are almost non-existent.
With General anaesthetic it’s possible to remove large amounts of fat and multiple points at the same time, including cutting the abdomen. Sew the abdominal muscles. It can be done at the same time.
General anesthesia requires an anesthesiologist.
Disadvantages of Surgical Anesthesia
The patient needs to stay in the hospital for at least 1 night because the medication can stay in the body for up to 24 hours.
There may be nausea after the surgery.
To summarize the advantages and disadvantages of different anaesthesia methods during liposuction, if we do not suck in large quantities or a large amount, it can be done by injecting local anesthesia. But when the amount of fat is large and there are many places that need to be treated, General anesthesia is probably a better option.