Yes, in most situations you can receive medications prior to surgery to help relieve anxiety. However, in some rare circumstances, this medication may interfere with your anesthesia or surgery and thus cannot be given. This will be discussed with your anesthesiologist prior to your surgery.
Midazolam injection is used to produce sleepiness or drowsiness and relieve anxiety before surgery or certain procedures. When midazolam is used before surgery, the patient will not remember some of the details about the procedure.
Also, anxiety, and the medications used to manage it, can increase your anesthesia resistance and possibly increase the risk of being awake under anesthesia.
Research suggests preoperative anxiety can increase the level of postoperative pain, meaning the higher a person's anxiety is before the surgery happens, the more pain and discomfort they may experience during recovery. It can also cause delays in wound healing and may lead to other complications, such as: nausea.
Answer: Preoperative anxiety
It is completely normal for you to be nervous in medical settings, especially surgery. At most centers, once an IV has been placed, a small amount of anti-anxiety medicine will be given to relax you.
Anxiolytics (Sedatives)
These medications are usually given pre-operatively to relax a patient before getting to the operating room. Anesthesiologists commonly give midazolam (Versed®) via IV injection for this purpose. In children, midazolam can be given orally as a liquid or nasal, as a spray, prior to a procedure.
While plastic surgeons are alert for use of medications that might increase complications, such as blood thinners, they are typically not concerned about antidepressants.
Preoperative anxiety has a great influence on the surgery outcomes. It could cause hypertension, increase heart rate, and thus, might lead to bleeding.
Patients with high levels of anxiety usually exhibit lower pain thresholds24, and therefore, there is a decreased anesthesia success rate among these patients, and complementary methods are required in this regard.
Can I take diazepam before surgery? Diazepam can be given as a pre-med to relax you before an operation or dental treatment that may be uncomfortable or make you feel anxious.
In addition to the time necessary for a tapered discontinuation and depending on the dose, assuming a 24 hour half-life and minimal active metabolites, an SSRI medication should be stopped at least two weeks before the operative procedure to allow for the generation of new platelets (56–59).
Use of certain medications. Heart or lung problems. Daily alcohol use. Lower anesthesia doses than are necessary used during procedure.
If you're having general anesthesia, an anesthesiologist will give you medications that make you lose consciousness. After the surgery is complete, he or she will reverse the medication so that you regain consciousness — but you won't be wide awake right away.
Local Anesthetics
A local anesthetic “numbs” the area being treated. You might notice a feeling of pressure but without pain. To help you feel calm and relaxed during the treatment, Nitrous oxide, or “laughing gas,” may be used which is breathed through a small nasal mask during the procedure.
Surgery can be intimidating and can provoke anxiety for any patient, but for the patient who is prone to anxiety, surgery can be the trigger for a panic attack. Thus, it is crucial for health care providers to examine and understand the mental health of patients who are undergoing surgical procedures.
Anticoagulants (blood thinners) should usually be stopped several days prior to your surgery. Oral medications may need to be replaced with injected or intravenous (IV) medications.
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.
Do not take aspirin, coumadin, or any anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen, naproxyn, or celebrex. Also, do not take Vitamin E. If you take these or any other over the-counter medications regularly, call your doctor to see when and if you should stop taking them.
Oral premedication with 0.5 mg of alprazolam decreases anxiety to the same extent as 7.5 mg of oral midazolam. In 80% of patients, alprazolam was found to be as effective as midazolam for anxiety reduction, but not in its amnestic effects [4].
The primary aim of premedication is to relieve the patient's anxiety/restlessness before anaesthesia and to ensure optimum quantity and quality of sleep on the night preceding surgery.
It is generally accepted that it is safe to administer anesthetics to patients on antidepressants; however, the anesthesia provider must be aware of the risk of potential drug–drug interactions; serotonin syndrome; hemodynamic changes; and/or bleeding issues.
High-risk operations have been defined as those with a mortality of >5%. This can be derived either from a procedure with an overall mortality of >5% or a patient with an individual mortality risk of >5%. Simple clinical criteria can be used to identify high-risk surgical patients.