If you're having a major surgery, you most likely will receive general anesthesia and be unconscious during the procedure. This means you will have no awareness of the procedure once the anesthesia takes effect, and you won't remember it afterward.
For example, a common patient response on emerging from anesthesia is disorientation and the feeling that time has not passed. This is in stark contrast to sleep, where one often wakes up just before the alarm sounds aware that time has passed during the night.
About once in every 1,000 to 2,000 surgeries, patients may gain some awareness when they should be unconscious. They may hear the doctors talking and remember it afterward. Worse yet, they may feel pain but be unable to move or tell the doctors. “It's a real problem, although it's quite rare,” says Dr.
There is continuous monitoring of the electrical activity in your heart, the amount of oxygen in your blood, your pulse rate, and blood pressure. Sometimes a device is used to monitor your brain waves while 'asleep', giving the doctor more detailed information about your level of unconsciousness.
Expect to be sleepy for an hour or so. Some people feel sick to their stomach, irritable, or confused when waking up. They may have a dry throat from the breathing tube. After you're fully awake and any pain is controlled, you can leave the PACU.
The process of waking up from anesthesia is known as emergence. During emergence, the anesthesiologist will slowly reduce the amount of anesthetic drugs in the body. This helps to reduce the intensity of the effects of anesthesia and allows the patient to regain consciousness.
Patients that are under general anesthesia feel nothing, and are unaware that any time has passed during the procedure. For the patient under general anesthesia, it seems as though they blink and the procedure is over.
Anesthesia won't make you confess your deepest secrets
It's normal to feel relaxed while receiving anesthesia, but most people don't say anything unusual. Rest assured, even if you do say something you wouldn't normally say while you are under sedation, Dr. Meisinger says, “it's always kept within the operating room.
In most cases they report that they were hearing conversations between the stuff without feeling anything else. But there are many cases where they report pain, paralysis and anxiety because of the fact that they feel helpless.
Some people feel sleepy but otherwise fine as the anesthesia wears off; others have side effects such as nausea or chills, and sometimes vomiting. Your throat may be sore from a tube that helped you breathe during surgery.
Do you stop breathing during general anesthesia? No. After you're unconscious, your anesthesiologist places a breathing tube in your mouth and nose to make sure you maintain proper breathing during the procedure.
Some postoperative patients may display emotional crying. There are many reasons for emotional crying after surgery, including fear, sadness, grief, guilt, or happiness. Fear of unfamiliar surroundings and people, or fear of diagnosis, pain, or disability may precipitate emotional crying.
Anxiety is particularly important, because it has the potential to affect all aspects of anesthesia such as preoperative visit, induction, perioperative, and recovery periods [2, 3].
A patient with heart failure or decreased cardiac output will not be able to pump the drug efficiently throughout the body to the lungs, liver, or kidneys to clear the drug. A patient with decreased lung function/ventilation will not be able to exhale vapor anesthetics promptly.
In most cases, a delayed awakening from anesthesia can be attributed to the residual action of one or more anesthetic agents and adjuvants used in the peri-operative period. The list of potentially implicated drugs includes benzodiazepines (BDZs), propofol, opioids, NMBAs, and adjuvants.
Generally, most individuals can safely undergo anesthesia multiple times for various procedures. However, it is essential to consult with your doctor to assess your unique risk factors before any medical intervention.
Before the procedure
Before you have anesthesia, your anesthesiologist will talk with you and may ask questions about: Your health history. Your prescription medicines, along with any nonprescription medicines and herbal supplements.
The drugs used in general anesthesia do not directly affect the heart. Instead, they slow down the body's metabolism, which can reduce the amount of oxygen being delivered to the heart. This can cause the heart rate to slow down, but it is not likely to stop completely.
The amount of time it takes to wake up from general anesthesia can vary depending on the dose, the patient's age, and other factors. Generally, it takes about 15 to 20 minutes for the patient to become fully conscious and alert.
So after surgery sometimes your intestines can shut down. It's called an ileus and it basically means that the intestines aren't actively moving food forward, and so if that's happening then you can't eat yet.
Usually, before having a general anaesthetic, you will not be allowed anything to eat or drink. This is because when the anaesthetic is used, your body's reflexes are temporarily stopped. If your stomach has food and drink in it, there's a risk of vomiting or bringing up food into your throat.
Among the things the anesthesiologist measures or observes, and uses to guide the type and amount of anesthetic given are: heart rate and rhythm, blood pressure, breathing rate or pattern, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, and exhaled anesthetic concentration.
Emergence agitation is a postanesthetic phenomenon that develops in the early phase of general anesthesia recovery, and is characterized by agitation, confusion, disorientation, and possible violent behavior [1].