Few days ago, I welcomed my beautiful baby girl through a cesarean section. During my anaesthetic and theatre review prior to my delivery appointment, my anaesthetist talked me through the process of the procedure and asked me several questions related to my previous experience as I have had a cesarean birth two years ago. From my previous experience, dealing with the post cesarean pain was the most terrifying period for me, and since we were discussing pain management, I decided to voice my fear. At this point, my anaesthetist educated me on something called PCA. This helped me reduce the pain and side effects of the spinal anaesthesia such as spinal headache to the barest minimum that I felt little or no pain at all.
(PCA) patient controlled analgesia as I have researched and understood is a method of pain control that gives patients the power to control their pain. A computerized device called the PCA pump containing prescribed dose of pain medication is connected to the patients intravenous line. In my case, the device was set to release a small dose of pain medication constantly into my system so that at every given time there is a certain dose of analgesic in my system enough to suppress the pain I was feeling. The PCA device also had a button which enables me to release an additional dose into my system by a 15 minutes interval whenever I was beginning to feel pain. In some cases, patients can control when they receive the medication without having a constant flow in their system. This worked marvelously well for me, my recovery was very quick as opposed to my first cesarean experience.
I am surprised that this is not new, yet alot of us are not educated by our doctors and we are left to go through the pain of post cesarean operation even though there has been a break through on this. If you are going for a cesarean birth, or perhaps you know someone who is, kindly share this information and feel free to discuss with your doctor. If you’ve used this PCA method, kindly share your experience in the comment section likewise any question you may have.
