The medications act directly on the spinal cord and nerves to stop the feeling of pain. A person is generally awake during the procedure. These types of anesthesia are commonly used during childbirth and with surgeries below the belly button. Regional anesthesia , local anesthesia , or topical anesthesia involve injecting medication into the skin or rubbing it onto the skin near the site of the procedure. This causes numbing.
Regional anesthesia involves numbing a large area, such as the entire hand or leg.
Local or topical anesthesias are used before small procedures, such as putting stitches into a cut. General, epidural, and spinal anesthesias require at least an hour or two of monitoring. This is usually done in a surgery recovery room . An individual can go home if he or she does not need to recover in the hospital. Someone else must drive the person home because the medications used can impair coordination and reflexes for several hours.