Hey all. So I went to the doctors today and had him remove a few moles. Before cutting the moles out, the doctor injects a local anaesthetic to numb the area to ensure you don’t feel anything.
I’m curious, how does anaesthetic work – you can still feel that somethings happening at the site, but you feel no pain? Would be very interested to know.
Thanks in advance!
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When you cut your hand the nerves transmit signals of pain to your brain and you say OUCH. What Lidocain does is it temporarily blocks those signals of pain your nerves carry to your brain. As a matter of fact it blocks any and all signals that the nerves carry to the brain. Which is why you feel numb the lidocaine enters the nerve and stops it from sending any signals of sensation or pain.
On a molecular level, drugs like lidocaine will block the voltage-gated, sodium channels that normally allow nerves to propagate a pain signal to the brain.
I believe lidocaine has to block these sodium channels from inside the nerve. So it has to be able to be absorbed into the nerve, then block the channel.
There’s a cartoon on this link that explains it.
https://www.sfn.org/sitecore/content/Home/BrainFacts2/Thinking-Sensing-and-Behaving/Pain/2016/Pain-Therapies-102516
A Biomedical engineering here,
Local Anaesthesia weakens the receptor nerves where it is applied.
Simply means that it’s like a network jammer, and our brain will not feel anything from that part of the body, because the anesthesia stops the nerves from sending signals to brain.
So we can perform painfull operations or surgical things, at patient’s max comfort ( pateint feels numbness at that point)
Pain is like Balrog, and Anaesthetic is like Gandalf. Balrog is trying to send a signal to the brain saying “this hurts” but Galdalf yells “you shall not pass” and blocks those signals so they’re not passed along.
I think that’s it. Someone please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
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