The difference between spinal and epidural anesthesia is that spinal the anesthetic is applied to the fluid surrounding the spine, while in the epidural the needle does not reach the space in which the liquid is.
In spinal anesthesia, the needle pierces all the meninges (protective layers of the spine and brain), until reaching the spinal cord, where the cerebrospinal fluid. In the epidural, the anesthetic is applied before. The needle does not pierce all the meninges.
With spinal anesthesia, the person stops feeling pain and loses all the movements and the touch sensation. The anesthetized area becomes "numb" and "paralyzed". The epidural is mainly used to relieve pain.
In epidural anesthesia, a catheter, through which the anesthetist can control the amount of medication that is injected. Thus, it can control the dosage as per the need of the patient at the time of surgery.
In the spinal cord, the patient receives a Single dose of drugs. The amount of anesthetic used in spinal anesthesia is also much lower than that used in the epidural.
It can be said that the epidural is a more superficial anesthetic than the spinal, so it needs more anesthetics for the person not to feel pain.
Read too:
What are the side effects of spinal anesthesia?
What are the side effects of epidural anesthesia?
