Differences between general, local, and regional anaesthesia.

Anesthesia is traditionally divided up into three sorts of anesthesia by anesthetists and that is general anesthesia sending the whole patient off to sleep, regional anesthesia which as the name implies sending regions of the patient off to sleep or local anesthesia which is just a small area of anesthesia as if you were taking a little lump out. Now the subtle difference between regional anaesthesia and local anaesthesia is not unreasonably lost on patients. They tend to divide anaesthesia into general anaesthesia where they're completely unconscious and local anaesthesia where parts of their body go numb. So when we use the term regional anaesthesia we really are referring to a region such as for instance the lower half of the body, using a spinal or epidural injection to make you go numb from the waist down or a limb where we can make the whole of your leg or the whole of your arm go numb. So we use that differentiation rather than just using the terms local and general anesthesia. The other really important thing to note is that if you have a local anesthetic, if you have a regional anesthetic, it doesn't mean that you're wide awake during the procedure. It is perfectly safe in most instances to give patients in addition to regional or local anaesthesia some sedation and that sedation can range from anything to the mild relief of apprehension and anxiety through moderate sedation where you doze off and you wake up every so often for a chat with a doctor or nurse who's looking after you to completely unable to recollect anything that happened during the procedure. So this is a long-winded answer to a very short and good question saying, generals all of you asleep, completely asleep, regional and local are both a form of local anaesthesia but region's a bigger chunk of the body and if you have regional or local you can have some sedation to help you go through the procedure which may be really mild, if you drink alcohol it may feel like a beer or two or so deep sedation that you don't remember anything about it and the depth of sedation can be discussed and negotiated with the anaesthetist or healthcare professional who's looking after you.