Do any of your ERs use warm lidocaine for anesthetic during suturing? I was wondering how do you warm the lidocaine? Ours usually comes in 10ml plastic vials. The one with epi comes in glass...

I was studying for my CEN and ran across this. Thought it would be a good idea especially for some of our pedi patients.

We had a fluid warmer that we put the vials in...we also kept the warmed Saline for lavage and fluids for hypothermia patients.

no we do not warm our lidocaine

I haven't heard of this, what is the benefit of warm lido?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that warming lidocaine decreases burning and stinging associated with local infiltration. I have not seen any papers proving this one way or another.

We typically do not warm our lido beforehand, except in the context of rolling the vial in your hand for a few moments prior to drawing the dose. The drug is stored at controlled room temperature in our automated dispensing cabinets. I would be curious to know if there is any degradation of the drug associated with medium- to long-term storage in a fluid warmer.