ANESTHESIA ESSENTIAL INFORMATION SERIES

ANSWER: “Side effects from spinal anesthesia are very similar to the side effects experienced during labor analgesia. Those would include blood pressure, drops, nausea and numbness in other parts of your body beyond where they would be operating. In addition to that, because spinal anesthesia does work very quickly, a number of patients will become rather light headed when the spinal anesthetic is first placed. Generally, this is related to the blood pressure drop and can be treated easily by the anesthesia team if you let them know that you are in fact becoming lightheaded. So in summary, the side effects from spinal anesthesia are very similar to epidural anesthesia include light-headedness, nausea, blood pressure drops, and numbness and other parts of your body.”