In this chilling column from 1999, Cecil talked about awareness under anesthesia and described some horrific examples.
Yesterday, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations sent an alert to 4600 hospitals it monitors warning of ‘anesthesia awareness’ and urging them to take steps to avoid it. I’d never before seen any reference to this subject outside of Cecil’s column. Yay for another small step in the fight against ignorance.
I have had to undergo general asnesthesia more than your average bear; I’m 42 years old, and have been under maybe eight times. One of my greatest fears is that one of these days, they’ll put me under and I won’t really be under! The whole idea just scares the crap outta me!
** norinew** As long as you have a good anesthesiologist, you’ll be ok.
It really doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, and once is way too often.
Many years ago, there was a story in Readers’ Digest© written by a man describing his entire open heart surgery. He thought he was supposed to be awake but, paralyzed. The surgeon and anesthetist * had no idea.
*This position no longer exists, at least, in the states I’ve worked. They were nurses, trained an extra year to administer anesthesia, esp. in rural areas. It was determined they made more mistakes than their MD counterparts.
Our local hospital system has nurse anesthetists, but they more or less assist anasthesiologists. I’ve been lucky to have good anasthesiologists so far.
I was under a general anesthetic for the first time in June. It was amazing to me how, one second I was looking around the surgery as they prepped me, and the next I was waking up in recovery.
Except…there was a very brief bit of awareness before I fully regained consciousness. I remember the feeling that my arm (which was being operated on) was being shocked and spasming while I was laying there. It wasn’t painful, though.
Later I mentioned it to my mother, an RN and she said it was probably ultrasound that was used to test my arm after the surgery, and was not long before I woke up.
This has happened to me. In 1991, I had my neck rebuilt - I had broken my C2 vertebra, and the situation was compounded when they discovered that I have a condition called an Arnold-Chiari Malformation, where the back of my brain actually extends down into the spinal canal, almost to my third vertebra.
Anyway, in 1991 they were fixing these two conditions, and the procedure was pretty involved and took 9.5 hours. As soon as I was revived, I had a clear memory of becoming aware during the procedure. I was face-down, but couldn’t see anything. I knew where I was and what was happening, but I could feel no pain. I could hear voices, but I don’t recall whether I could understand what they said. My thought was that I needed to signal to them that I was waking up, so I tried to move my arms, or make a noise, but I couldn’t. Eventually I was able to wiggle my foot, and I think the signal worked, because the memory ended there.
It was very unlike the usual experience in general anesthesia, where there are no memories at all - it’s like you go out, then immediately wake up, but hours have passed. It was kind of scary, but I never felt discomfort.
I know this is secondhand, but my mother regularly talks about becoming aware while she was “under” during the C-section for my twin brother and I. She remembers the doctor making a rude remark about her weight, hearing me cry, and feeling herself being stitched up, among other things. I’ve always taken it as gospel, since my mother is a saint. 
When I had my wisdom teeth removed I had this same experience and found it very interesting. The contrast between being under vs. sleeping was dramatic. Before then I had no appreciation for the fact that as one sleeps ones mind is somehow aware that time is passing. Being under is - or should be - more like turning the switch off. Sleeping is more like standby.
I know that occasionally we all have that drop dead sleep when you feel like you just put your head down. Much more often, however, if I wake up earlier than I should I know it without even looking at the clock.
Sleep - I’ve been doing it my whole life but when you think about it, it’s pretty weird!!!
My sister tells about this happening during the emergency C-section when my nephew (premature, 3 pounds, 2 ounces) was born.
They had been trying to stop the labor for hours, then decided they couldn’t, and needed to do a c-section, immediately! When the surgeon started cutting her open, my sister said “hey – I can still feel that!”. The doctor replied “Yes, the anesthesia will just be starting to take effect. But we can’t wait – this baby can’t! Just try to put up with it until then, OK?” So she did, and it worked; my nephew survived.
She said the anesthesia must have kicked in, because she didn’t feel it when they were cutting deep inside her. But it was rather startling when the operation first started.
I know several women for whom epidural anaesthesia has not worked during their c-section deliveries. In every case, they indicated that they could feel it. Unfortunately, in most of these cases, the doctors told them “You don’t feel that” and went on cutting, and pulling, and ripping.
This isn’t quite the same thing as anaesthesia awareness, but you’d think the doctors would at least entertain the possibility - given that epidurals don’t always work, or may wear off - that these women are not lying about feeling the knife cutting them open.
When I was 8 years old I let my dentist know the novocaine wore off, he went on drilling so I bit him…he took 7 stitches, but he stopped drilling. His assistant finished up after giving me more novocaine. Unfortunately I have to be sedated to get me to a dentist if I need anything other than a cleaning/checkup 
I *really hate dentists now.
The same thing happened to me…I remember waking up mid-procedure to a room with a very green haze (despite the fact that the room was obviously well-lit!) and the doctor had to actually ask me to calm down or else he would stop, and apparently I did. I did remember feeling (in a pressure sense) a tooth coming out of the socket, but not a hint of pain so something must have worked!
Still, I’d rather take my chances with dental pain agony than the same pain when my chest is open (I get an image of Braveheart there!)
Maybe if more OB’s got bit, they’d start taking complaints a little more seriously! If I were in that situation, I would bite him. :mad:
LOL adults have restraint…8 year olds let the chips lay where they fall and bite and kick=)
Though I think if my epi wasnt working, that doctor would have serious problems… if he didn’t take steps he would meet me in a court room. There is NO reason that the proceedure should go on without adressing the pain. Unless you are in serious danger of bleeding out, and by that time you are probably being knocked out totally and about to go under the knife…
Not when it comes to the hoo hoo!
sort of my opinion when someone suggests I get my clit pierced. You want me to let a needle go through WHERE? :dubious:
I know this was posted months ago but no one had replied and I thought this was relevant: What you describe actually sounds a lot like a wake-up test, and was probably intentional. Whenever surgery is being done on the spine and involves or may injure the spinal cord or brain, the surgeons will often want a wake-up test. Essentially, the anesthesiologist will lighten the patient up in a way that he or she can follow simple commands but doesn’t feel pain. If the patient follows the command “move your feet”, then everyone in the OR knows that the patient’s nervous system is intact from the noggin down to the piggies–kind of a safety measure to be sure there isn’t inadvertant damage being done.
Usually we alert the patient ahead of time that he or she may need to help us and may remember that part of the procedure, but we don’t always know in advance. Anyway, your experience and the nature of your surgery make me thinks that’s what happened.
Last time I had surgery the anesthesiologist loosened one of my front teeth, presumably in the process of intubating me. I was thrilled to wake up post-surgery with a wobbly tooth.