Which is better, epidural or patient-controlled analgesia after surgery?

Depends: If you are speaking about abdominal surgery, both are effective, but the epidural should be a thoracic epidural. It really depends on the practice of your surgeon and aneshesiologists. Open vs. Laparoscopic abdominal surgery. Overall for abdominal surgery, it is best to minimize narcotic use, pca, epidural or oral.

Depends: It depends on what surgery you are having, and what the expertise of your anesthesiologist is. Pca is a means of the patient giving themselves intravenous narcotic. Epidural anesthetic can be very good for some types of surgery, and there is also continuous epidural anesthesia for some situations. You should confer with your surgeon and your anesthesiologist as to what is best for your condition.