Local Anesthesia for Ultrasound Guided Hip Joint Injections: A Double-Blinded Randomized Controlled Trial of Bacteriostatic Saline Versus Buffered Lidocaine

Local anesthesia is commonly used to reduce pain during joint injections, particularly for deep joints like the hip. Lidocaine is the most commonly used local anesthetic in most medical practices. It is well known that lidocaine infiltration itself is painful. Many strategies have been studied to minimize pain associated with lidocaine administration, including buffering, warming, and slowing infiltration rate. BS is an alternative local anesthetic that has been shown to be less painful when injected into subcutaneous tissues compared with lidocaine. However, BS use has not been widely implemented for local anesthesia, and it has not been studied in the context of joint injections.