Warming lignocaine reduces the pain of injection during peribulbar local anaesthesia for cataract surgery.

Abstract

To test if the simple technique of warming lignocaine reduces the pain of injection during local anaesthetic cataract surgery. Sixty patients undergoing peribulbar local anaesthesia for cataract surgery were allocated randomly to receive either warm (37 degrees C) or cold (room temperature) plain 2% lignocaine for the injection. Pain was assessed subjectively by asking the patients to score their pain from 0 (no pain) to 10 (most severe pain imaginable). The mean pain score for the warm group was 2.3 (SD 1.3) in comparison with a mean score of 5.5 (1.0) for the cold group (p < 0.01). The process of warming lignocaine to 37 degrees C has been found to reduce significantly the pain of injection during peribulbar local anaesthesia. It is recommended that this technique be more widely adopted in order to minimise patient's discomfort.