There are also local anesthetics like the lidocaine family. Some of those are usable for post operative pain in the very short term, but obviously can't be adm

There are also local anesthetics like the lidocaine family. Some of those are usable for post operative pain in the very short term, but obviously can't be administered orally. That presents a problem for most surgeries, since either they'll want to send the patient home or it's located somewhere that's hard to inject.