Of course, my best mates an equine vet so we love comparing the similarities and differences haha (she's mad and just started medical school in her mid 30s tho!
Spinals are a mixture of heavy bupivacaine 0.5% (sorry no clue if you use such so excuse if patronising, the heavy, means it is mixed with dextrose which allows us to change the height of the block by tilting you head up or head down) to actually numb you + ideally diamorphine for the longer analgesia (we have had a lot of supply issues with diamorph lately though so if we can't get it then we use fentanyl)
Post dural headaches have an incidence rate of 1 in 100. About 50% ish from spinals self resolve, the rest can need treatment (blood patch, performing an epidural then injecting blood from your own arm into your epidural space). If you get a dural tap from an epidural (if the needle goes slightly too far, as the epidural space is more superficial than the dura) then these universally need patching as the needle is significantly higher
Most people will get shivery with a spinal (it can be pretty dramatic) it's just a side effect, we aren't entirely sure why. Some people get opiate itch, it's not really that common and most aren't really bothered by it (we ask everyone on our day1 follow up ward round). If it bothers you, ask for some ondansetron (the midwives love giving chlorphenamine for it, it doesn't really do anything, just makes them feel like they're doing something, there's more evidence for ondansetron via the 5ht3 receptors) or if its really annoying then we can give naloxone ... but tbh its rarely an issue
if you labour with an epidural they have higher chances of itching (uses 2mic/ml fentanyl), if that bothers you we can swap it to a plain LA bag. Again fairly rare maybe done it 5x in 9y of labour ward
Spinals always drop BP by nature of how they work. Everyone immediately goes onto a vasopressor infusion as soon as they lay down to counteract it, we check the BP every 3mins but sometimes it drops between, just let us know you feel sick, we can fix it relatively quickly, don't suffer unnecessarily. Unfortunately approx 50% of people get nauseous in a section maybe 20% vomit. We can fix it quickly there's bowls on our machine. Normal antiemetics have minimal role as it's a combo of spinal hypotension and bump causing aorto-caval compression
My "normal chit chat" haha for legs recovery is... your legs will come back to normal over the next 3-4h, they get a bit more tingly, bit more pins and needle-y as they come back, often feels like when you've sat on your arm for too long and given yourself a dead limb. It's really important when your legs come back to always have a midwife with you when you first stand up as sometimes they can feel a bit stronger than they actually are, and I don't want you to fall over as that's a lot of paperwork"
Sorry never had a spinal so can't give an actual comparison but assume so
You can't see anything as there's high drapes, we lower them for lion King moment showing of baby but you can't see anything of the surgery as the incision is the other side of the bump. The only thing to be aware of is mum can occasionally see the op from the reflection in the operating lights, just tell us if you can and we will move them
Surgeons generally don't talk to u at all during the op beyond saying "big stretch" when they're splitting the muscles as that's the sensation you feel (we watch and tell you case they dont), and saying congrats after the baby is out. They'll come and explain how it went once they've closed
We chat to you the whole time, not about the surgery tho haha all sorts, people often bring their own music play list so often about that, I get lots of song recommendations out of that. Baby names. Siblings of babies. Are you prepared? Are siblings looking forward to baby or jealous. Your jobs often. Random news. Random music if we just have Spotify on shuffle if parents haven't choose their own music. Tbh baby is out within 9mins of knife to skin so you then have a cute baby distraction anyway at which point we take over Chief photographer role lol
Shout if you think of anything else, we love obs tho super happy joyful theatre list is one of my favs x