Lidocaine Injection: An Unbeaten Drug in Anesthesia
Generic Lidocaine injection is very effective as a local anesthetic drug. It starts its action in a moment and intermediate duration of effectiveness. Thus, lidocaine is suitable for infiltration, block and surface anesthesia. Longer-acting substances such as bupivacaine are sometimes preferred for spinal and peridural anesthesias. But, Lidocaine is renowned for the rapid beginning of action. Adrenaline supplements delay the resorption; the duration of efficiency can thus almost be doubled. For surface anesthesia several formulations are available that can be used e.g. for endoscopies, before intubations etc. A prescription is required buy Lidocaine
Lidocaine injectionis also familiar as an antiarrhythmic drug: it is employed intravenously to treat ventricular arrhythmias (for acute myocardial infarction, digitalis poisoning, cardioversion or cardiac catherization). But, a routine prophylactic administration is no longer suggested for acute cardiac infarction; the overall benefit of this measure is not convincing.
Drugs and Foods to Avoid
Ask your doctor or pharmacist before starting or stopping any other medicine, including over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal products. Inform your doctor if you may use digoxin (Lanoxin®), amiodarone (Cordarone®), amprenavir (Agenerase®), atazanavir (Reyataz®), phenytoin (Dilantin®) or St. John's wort. If you use ergot medicines such as Cafergot®, notify your doctor. Let your doctor know if you use phenothiazines such as Compazine®, Phenergan®, Thorazine®, or Trilafon®. Your doctor should know if you are using any kind of blood pressure drug such as metoprolol, nadolol, propranolol, Corgard®, Inderal®, or Toprol®. Also, tell your doctor if you are using medicine for depression such as amitriptyline, nortriptyline, Norpramin®, or Vivactil®. Tell your doctor if you are using any medicines that make you sleepy. These include sleeping pills, cold and allergy medicine, narcotic pain relievers, and sedatives.
The patient feels pain at the site of injection might occur. If this continues for long or worsens, let your doctor know about it. Also report promptly if you experience visual changes, nausea, tingling or numbness, drowsiness, dizziness, confusion, shakiness, mental changes, ringing in the ears, slurred speech, muscle twitching, unusually slow heartbeat, seizures. Lidocaine injection also may cause allergic reaction such as difficulty breathing, skin rash, itching, swelling. If you notice other effects not listed above, contact your doctor or pharmacist.
Precautions
In some cases, your doctor may recommend home injections of lidocaine. In such case you should take utmost care while taking lidocaine injection. Also you need to know about the signs of overdosing on lidocaine. It can happen accidentally occasionally. An overdose of lidocaine injection can cause heart attack-like symptoms such as chest pain. Rinse the injection area completely and use a sterile needle for each injection. Be careful not to do anything to hurt the area of the injection. It will be numb so you may not notice the injury.
Drug/Laboratory Test Interactions
Lidocaine injection for intramuscular may raise creatine phosphokinase levels. Consequently, the use of this enzyme determination, without isoenzyme separation, as a diagnostic test for the presence of acute myocardial infarction may be compromised by the intramuscular injection of Lidocaine.