Word: spinal
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...seen an action movie knows we can take quite a beating yet be oblivious to pain. This is neural blockade at the highest level - in the brain. But it can happen all the way down to the nerve-ending level. There is a well-known pain gate in the spinal cord; regional anesthesia controls pain by temporarily blocking nerve transmission via chemicals injected around more peripheral nerves. Farther down toward the pain-associated nerve endings we create neural blockade with topical anesthetics (like what the dentist puts on your gum so you don't feel the novocaine needle) or even...
...dividing lines between levels of anesthesia can be blurry. Once you get away from major surgery, pain control and sedation are often mixed and matched according to patient preference. Says Dr. Ronald Pearl, chairman of the department of anesthesia at Stanford: "It's not uncommon when we do a spinal anesthetic, say for knee surgery, to ask the patients whether they want to be awake or asleep for it." Those who choose sleep do so not because they want to avoid the pain--they won't be feeling it in either case--but because they just don't want...
...choosing to stay awake doesn't mean a patient is free of the risks of anesthesia. "We can get in trouble with a local anesthetic," says Zapol. "We can get in trouble with a spinal anesthetic," which keeps pain signals from getting to the brain but doesn't make the patient sleepy. "We can overdose you in all of those places." Someone, whether it's an anesthesiologist, another physician or a fully trained nurse, has to be ready to deal with that possibility. "Surgeons are experts at kidneys and ureters and coronary arteries and lungs. They're skillful people," Zapol...
When the President vetoed the stem-cell-research bill, many Americans, including me, were finally able to support a major presidential decision. No one is opposed to improving treatments for cancer, spinal-cord injuries or heart disease, but I am opposed to destroying life in order to get there. Embryos must be respected in the same way an 8-month-old fetus is respected. I believe science should pursue research on umbilical-cord and adult stem cells but leave the embryos alone. BRIAN WALLIS Glen Allen...
...with the President's veto by about a 2-to-1 ratio. Almost half of those surveyed in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll last week said that either they or someone in their family suffers from one of the conditions--cancer, Parkinson's disease, juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, spinal-cord injuries or heart disease--for which stem-cell research is believed to hold the greatest promise. "There are a lot of things we do here [in Washington] that don't touch people directly. This one does," says Congressman Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee...