Did a total knee earlier today on a ASA 3 lady with restless leg syndrome, easy uneventful spinal. But patient is jerking her legs nearly the entirety of the case. She's snoring away the whole case and has zero pain post-op so the spinal obviously worked. How the hell is she moving her legs though? Anyone experience anything like this and if so any tricks? Surgeon was getting super annoyed and I was pretty close to converting to GETA and paralyzing.
RLS > spinal
- Thread starter minwoo
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IMHO, the utilization of tetracaine with dextrose results in a very strong motor block; much more so than Bup with dextrose. Isobaric Bup has even less motor block than Heavy Bup.
If the RLS is bothering the surgeon place an LMA and add Propofol vs Sevoflurane.
If the RLS is bothering the surgeon place an LMA and add Propofol vs Sevoflurane.
I think it shouldn't be an issue with a good spinal but if it's good enough for surgery I don't know why it wouldn't be good enough to block motor. I can't explain it.
Most certainly will do that next time. I used heavy bupivacaine and just trying to make sense of it pharma/physiologically. I'm wondering if RLS has more to do with intrinsic spasms of the muscles themselves and blockade of nerves are rendered irrelevant?
Periodic Limb Movements are frequently described with spinal cord injury patients. It's possible that there is some sort of neuromuscular pathology inherent to RLS.
It's the same reason that urologists don't like spinals for TURBTs involving lateral tumors and the risk of bladder injury related to stimulation of the obturator nerve.
EDIT: Thanks Arch
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- Aug 8, 2001
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only semi-related, many of the the patients I've seen who can just not stop jerking under adequate anesthesia have ESRD and are on dialysis. all of these patients are iron deficient, and iron-deficiency has a very strong link with RLS.
Just my 2 cents. I've had 2 people with what appeared to be RLS manifesting under general anesthesia also. About a month ago in the cath lab during a GETA for an ablation I had a patient who was still moving their legs at a MAC of 1.2-1.3. So an LMA might not cut it sometimes if that's the sole purpose of general.
True RLS is a dopaminergic mediated phenomenon. Typically it presents in anemic and dialysis patients because the iron molecule is a cofactor for the synthesis of dopamine.
