Techs and Fluoro

The Fluoro Department at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston has begun to use Lidocaine for most of our urinary catheterizations for VCUGs. This lidocaine is not only applied externally to numb the opening but also internally via a special syringe up into the urethra. The special syringe is called a Urojet. This process has been very successful especially with our frequent patients. Patients who require frequent VCUGs report less pain. Our experience is that this new process works best with older patients who can cooperate with the installation of the lidocaine--i.e. the lidocaine is instilled and then we must wait for 2 minutes for the medication to take full effect. Younger children tend to not tolerate the 2 minute wait which may be due to the fact that they are on the exam table and their anxiety is already high. We do feel that this new process is starting a whole new precedent for VCUGs which will hopefully lead to continued support for additional pain control or anti-anxiety medications for all our fluoro patients (if needed).