Approxiamtely a decade ago, effective anesthesia became an indispensible part of providing modern abortion care.  Abortion clinics quickly became aware that effective anesthesia was the modern responsible choice for patients who were facing the option of undergoing a surgical abortion.  Unfortunately even these days anesthesia options still vary widely from facility to facility, often depending on the level of services available in the area and the type of facility or clinic you have chosen. The anesthesia options being used in abortion clinics is definitely not the same, but often chosen based on cost decided by the owner or the physician's level of skill in being able to use anesthesia medicines due to their individual training.  The best medicines, which provide the greatest amount of reliable comfort and safety is given appropriately, require a heightened level of training and skill.  In clinics which offer menu type options, the effectiveness and comfort level will differ depending on which anesthesia method is available in the facility you have chosen.

It is unfortunate that many abortion clinics still do not offer truly effective anesthesia for patients to assure their comfort during this surgical procedure.  If you are misled into believing that nitrous oxide or valium will provide reliably effective pain management during a surgery, you may find yourself in the middle of a painful abortion procedure before you realize these are not stand alone effective methods of anesthesia for surgery.  These are actually just pre-operative medications at most, like what you would get at the dentist to assist in the numbing of your teeth, and are just used to assist with anxiety.  As a matter of fact, valium has very little place in the field of anesthesia, and is actually a pill designed to be given for non-surgically related anxiety relief.  But there are still many non-physician owned abortion clinics that either do not offer, or are unable to offer truly effective anesthesia at all. Although very old-fashioned in modern medicine, some even still only provide the weak Nitrous Oxide breathable gas or offer just oral valium to patients while they undergo a surgical abortion procedure. While there are some women, based on certain factors, that can tolerate this procedure without anesthesia, this is the reason the abortion procedure had developed a reputation of often being such a "painful" and even sometimes intolerable experience.  At Florida Women's Center, we feel it is never appropriate to have a patient who is in pain during a surgical procedure, and we provide effective anesthesia designed by a physician who has training in the field of anesthesiology.