My surgeon does an ab pain block similar to an epidural where you feel nothing for hours. Like when you go to the dentist and the object you and block the pain? So they told me they don't really give pain meds the day you're In For surgery has anyone else experienced that?

Know this an old post.

But this is very common. Id imagine every surgeon doing bariatrics using some kind of local block. From what ive seen the most common is a transverse abdominis plane block. Depending on how stingy the hospital is they could use some longer acting medication for this (lasting 48-72 hours) instead of the "basic" stuff that many use that lasts 6-12 hours.

Regardless I always see pain medication given on top of this, as its easier to avoid/prevent pain than to fix it after the fact.

From personal experience, I don't see why this would be necessary. I had minimal pain and the pain I did have was mostly from trapped gas. I know that everyone is different but it just seems like overkill to me.

16 minutes ago, mollymckim said:

From personal experience, I don't see why this would be necessary. I had minimal pain and the pain I did have was mostly from trapped gas. I know that everyone is different but it just seems like overkill to me.

You probably had this done. Almost every single laparscopic surgeon uses some kind of local anesthesia during their procedure. They don't all give it a fancy name like a transverse abdominal nerve plane block, but it's a borderline universal thing.

They did this to me pre-op. They explained it would help me need less pain meds post-op. It was awful. They were using this ultrasound machine on my left side from just below my armpit area pushing down on my ribs and then lower down near my hip pushing down so they could see where the needle was going in. They said they gave me some medicine to make me feel comfortable but it didn't work. Then I had to roll over so they could repeat it on the right side. So four injections total. The surgeon came to my room the next day to see how much pain medication I had been given to see if the nerve block had made any difference. Apparently this was something new they were trying with baratric patients here. She didn't see a difference. Lucky me.