Does Spinal Anesthesia Cause Restless Leg Syndrome?
If you’ve been wondering if spinal anesthesia might have caused your restless leg syndrome to become worse, you don’t need to worry any more because recent research has found that spinal anesthesia is not the cause of restless legs. New studies and more extensive research into the subject have been launched in response to a study that speculated that spinal anesthesia was the cause of RLS in many patients.
Since RLS is a neurological condition which causes jittery, burning and crawling sensations in the legs that is often accompanied with the need to move, it was thought that any type of spinal anesthesia would further damage or affect the nerves and cause the symptoms to become worse. The problem with this theory is that up to 10% of the population suffers from this condition and many of them have never had any type of spinal anesthesia. Conversely, many people who have RLS have never had any type of spinal anesthesia.
Restless Leg Syndrome Is Not Affected
These are promising findings considering the fact that for many procedures, spinal anesthesia is thought to be much safer and effective. Many out-patient procedures are done with the help of spinal anesthesia and for many people, it is a preferred method of anesthetic when it comes to surgical procedures. However, if you suffer from Restless Leg Syndrome, and are considering a surgical procedure, you may have been considering only a general anesthesia in the hopes that your RLS will not become worse.
Spinal anesthesia is a way to allow surgical patients to be numb from the lower abdomen through the legs with the placement of medications directly into the spine. Often, this is used when a woman has a cesarean section so she may remain awake for the birth of her child. These medications block the transmission of signals from the nerves in the area to the brain. Sometimes, however, the complication of nerve damage can occur with spinal anesthesia.
New studies show that there is now connection between spinal anesthesia and Restless Legs Syndrome or its symptoms. In fact, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine compared people who had undergone general anesthesia with those who had spinal anesthesia and found that there was no real difference in the occurrence of RLS among those patients.
The thought now is that when a person suffers from restless legs after surgery, it likely has to do more with the surgery itself and not with the form of anesthesia. In fact, it is thought that a forced immobilization following many surgeries might be more of a culprit with this condition. Although some people have reported temporary RLS after surgical procedures, it doesn’t look as if there will be a risk of having a lasting case of RLS and if you don’t have RLS, it’s unlikely that you will get it due to your anesthetic.
