If certain basic precautions are taken, it is a very safe anaesthetic technique. Serious complications are very rare. They are due to direct damage from the needle to the nerves or epidural cord, local infection, toxicity of the local anaesthetic and blood clot formation in the epidural space, which can compress and damage the spinal cord of the local nerves roots.
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Again, these complications are very rare: blood clot formation with damage to cord and nerves is thought to happen in one of 150 000 epidural procedures, and are mostly due to a fault in the patient’s clotting system or medication that prevents clotting. There have been only about 80 reports in history of patients getting paralysed because of epidural clots, out of millions of epidurals performed.
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