Piercings and tattoos, I mean. Wouldn’t it be easy if we just applied anesthesia? I don’t know if there’s a reason why, but I do wanna know.
*Also, why isn’t anesthesia applied for IUD insertion?
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By “applied,” I think you mean on the surface of the skin. That’s called “topical.” You can certainly do that for tattoos, but you’d have to get the anesthetic cream from a doctor. Apply it about a half hour before the tattoo, and it might wear off before the tattoo artist is finished.
As far as applying anesthesia for IUD insertion, putting anesthetic on the surface of the cervix would do little, if anything. It is the stretching that’s painful. Conscious sedation or perhaps a pudendal nerve block (you’d have to do both sides) would be the only way to go for that. Pudendal nerve blocks are hard, and conscious sedation has some risks and needs its own skill set on the part of the medical team. Insurance denials are probably the reason it’s not done. Insurance companies consider anesthesia “part of the procedure,” and therefore not eligible for any additional payment, unless it’s done by a separate doctor (like an anesthesiologist), and even then, I’d be surprised if they would pay it.
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