Extradural air as a cause of paraplegia following lumbar analgesia.

A 52-year-old woman with chronic back pain presented for lumbar extradural analgesia. The 'loss of resistance to air' technique was used to locate the extradural space. Prolonged paraesthesia and paresis of left leg occurred following the procedure.

Continuous extradural infusion of lignocaine 0.75% vs bupivacaine 0.125% in primiparae: quality of analgesia and influence on labour.

We studied 86 primiparous women with uncomplicated pregnancy and labour requesting extradural analgesia in labour. All the women were over 36 weeks of gestation with a cephalic-presenting singleton fetus. The women were allocated randomly to two groups: group A, who received an extradural infusion of lignocaine 0.

A case of prolonged hypotension following intravenous guanethidine block.

A 25-year-old female developed causalgia following a nerve injury in the left hand, and this was treated successfully with a series of intravenous guanethidine blocks. However, after the 13th block, systolic arterial blood pressure decreased to 60 mmHg and remained low (80 mmHg) for one week. Accumulation of guanethidine at the sympathetic nerve ending, resulting in autonomic denervation, might be the underlying mechanism of the prolonged hypotension.