How Covid 19 can be impacted with anaesthesia.

So is it safer for me to have a general anesthetic or regional anesthetic just in case I catch COVID just after the operation? Do you know that's a really good question. We can't give you an absolute definitive answer because we haven't done the detailed large number of research, but we've got we've got quite a hunch what we can do and what has been done in a lot of research is to look at how the body's immune system responds to surgery under general anesthesia and surgery under regional anesthesia. And there is, I think, convincing proof that your immune system, the function of your immune system, is better preserved after an operation under regional anesthesia than it is under general anesthesia. I could talk for hours about exactly why this is, but I will encapsulate it within a few words. Essentially, some general anesthetics, but no regional anesthetics adversely affect the immune system. Morphine and other strong painkillers adversely affect the immune system. If you don't have the general and you don't have the morphine your immune system is better intact. So all the suggestions from animal work and other studies are that you may be better able to cope with infection and this is infection in a broad sense not just COVID but maybe the chances of a wound infection or a cold or bronchitis or all sorts of other things if you have a regional anaesthetic rather than a general anaesthetic. Do not go and say that Professor Howard Griffiths insists that it's dangerous to have a general. I'm not saying that. I'm saying there is some evidence you may be better off having a regional anaesthetic and I genuinely believe that.