Is the pain catheter only being used in shoulder replacement surgery?
Dr. Malchow: No. In the last six months since we’ve started the program here at Vanderbilt, we’ve put in over a 150 pain catheters and pumps for home use. About 50 of those have been total shoulder replacements. The other 100 or so home pain catheters have been in other major surgery, either upper extremity or lower extremity surgery. How long do patients have this pump with them? Dr. Malchow: Patients will typically have it for two to four days. We feel that if we can aggressively treat their pain for that first 72 hours or so that the pain diminishes every day thereafter. It’s usually not too bad that we can go ahead and discontinue the pump at that two to four day mark and just continue oral pain meds at that point. What do you say to someone who is worried about the dosing? Dr. Malchow: That’s a common concern that if I dial this pain pump, I’m going to get too much Novocain. We reassure them that that would be extremely rare, that the settings on the pump are safe, that we test th
