Procedural_Pain_Management

Procedural Pain Management The patient was a 29 year old women who had mandibula reconstruction using her left iliac crest as the donor. She returned from the theatre with an epidural cannula inserted into the donor site area supplying a bupivicaine infusion. The infusion of a local anaesthetic into a wound site post operatively has been recommended as a technique after using bone from the iliac crest or rib in head and neck procedures (Hahn and Jones 2000). The next day the patient was seen by a consultant and ordered to stop the infusion and to start to mobilise. Before I stopped the pump I checked that the patient had received her regular morning pain relief, which was cocodamol and voltarol. I also made sure that she was pain free. Shortly after being seen by a physiotherapist the patient was complaining of pain. I asked the patient to locate the pain and I also asked her to described the pain intensity by using a numeric scale from zero to ten. She pointed to her hip and described the pain as scoring nine. Whilst I was asking the patient these questions, I observed that her facial expression had changed, she looked pale. I took her blood pressure and pulse and noticed both were elevated. She was prescribed 20 milligrams of Oramorph, which was given. Good pain management is an essential part of the nurse’s role ( Feber 2000) I reviewed the patient after half and hour and she confirmed that she was comfortable. Bibliography Faber, T. 2000. Head and neck Oncology Nursing. London, Philadelhia: Whurr Publishers Limited Hahn, M.J.and A. Jones, 2000 head and neck nursing. Edinburgh: Churchill livingstone.