Local Anaesthetic Pain Reduction Techniques

This article is a stub.

See strazar et al for a good summary of minimising the pain of local anaesthesia injection.

Solution Preparation

• Buffer the lidocaine with sodium bicarbonate.
• Warm the local anaesthetic

Equipment Factors

• Use fresh needles with repeated injections
• Use a small diameter needle

Patient Preparation

• Distraction
• Patient looks away

Reducing Needle Puncture Pain

• Topical anaesthetic creams
• Cooling with ice
• Tactile distraction
• Inject into subcutaneous fat if there is an open wound
• Insert needle perpendicularly to the skin

Reducing Injection Pain

• Stabilise the syringe holding hand to reduce needle movement
• Inject subdermally instead of intradermally
• Inject a small bleb and then pause
• Inject very slowly
• Keep the local anaesthetic wheal 10mm ahead of the needle tip
• Reinsert the needle only within 1cm of the blanched skin border
• Learn by asking all patient to score their injeciton pain