I can’t eat food (or even drink water!) after midnight the night before the surgery, so I ate a nice big meal to last me until whenever I’m able to eat.
However …
We had the same rule when my surgery was scheduled for 8:00am last Friday, and the same rule for when my surgery was rescheduled for 2:00pm on Tuesday.
In one of those scenarios, I would have not eaten for 8 hours before they put me under. In the other scenario, it will be 14 hours. Plus however long it is until the surgery is complete, and I’m able to go eat.
So, why don’t they tell me a number of hours before the surgery that I should be not eating, rather than telling me a set time that might make me very hungry/thirsty, or might be almost unnoticeable depending on the time of surgery?
What is the proper amount of time? I’m not a Gremlin, so I know it can’t be tied to a weird thing like midnight…
Im guessing there’s no room for human error when everyone just says the same line. Once you have hospital staff attempting to do math in their heads or the patients doing math then you’re opening yourself up to error if not liability. I think you need to think about this in terms of policy and dealing with all sorts of people from different backgrounds and different levels of education. It only takes a few hours for your stomach to empty for a large meal, so even the 8 hour scenario is overkill. Better safe than sorry I suppose.
I suspect you’re on to it here. Midnight’s just a nice, easy to remember time, and enforces a bright-line rule that takes real stupidity to miss. Though SeanArenas doesn’t say whether he’s having inpatient or outpatient surgery, the same principle would apply.
Meaning no disrespect, mein Freund, but going without food for 8 hours shouldn’t be a huge problem; that’s basically a good night’s sleep. Assuming you have a right-before-bed snack and sleep a full night, you’re pushing eight hours’ fast normally.
As for the 14 hour scenario… Hey, I fast for 24 hours at a time three days a week… Doing without for 14 hours isn’t a problem.
As for the “however long it is until the surgery is complete and I’m able to go eat…”, do you really think that you’re going to feel like eating the minute the anaesthesia wears off? My guess is that, given recovery time from the surgery, you’ll be pushing a 24 hour fast before you’re thinking about your next meal, and I’ll wager you won’t be wanting to polish off a 20 oz. sirloin with all the trimmings when you do get around to eating.
And I know people who do the “Master Cleanser” for 7 or 10 days. I’m sure 14 or 20 hours without food is something they wouldn’t bat an eye at.
I, however, am the product of our capitalist American society, and I’m used to eating whenever I feel like it. I eat 3 or 4 meals a day. About 6 meals a week are not “square,” but it still comes down to me being comfortable not being hungry.
I’m used to eating at around 8pm, going to bed at 9pm, and eating breakfast about 7am. That’s about 11-12 hours of “fast,” what I’d figure most people go through before they “break their fast” with their first meal of the day.
By “able to go eat” I had meant that I would physically feel up to eating. Of course I don’t think it will happen 10 minutes after surgery, but if I ate at 12:30 this morning, surgery is at 1:30 (they updated the time already) and takes 2 hours (just a guess), I’m getting out of there at 3:30. Let’s assume I don’t feel like I could keep food down until 5:00 (just guessing, I haven’t had a general in over 15 years), that’s still 16.5 hours of not eating. That’s a while for me. That would be like not eating until my normal lunch time. I’ll be on the brink of starvation!
No, of course not. I’ll be fine. A little uncomfortable, but not passing out from hunger or thirst. I was mainly just asking because the midnight time seems like too large of a blanket. What if my surgery wasn’t until 4:00pm?
Thanks! It’s removing cysts and some of the eyelash follicles, and cauterizing the tear ducts so the tears stay in the eyes longer. Pretty minor stuff I think
I’ve always wondered if this was OK, to eat a huge meal and drink a gallon of water just before midnight. Technically you’re not violating the “no food after midnight” order, but that’s not what they intend you to do, is it?
It might be a dubious assumption on my part, but I suspect that the midnight “deadline” is imposed specifically to give plenty of time for the stomach to empty in the event that someone does exactly that.
A quick Google search of “gastric emptying time” brings up a few abstracts of scientific papers which (if I’m reading them correctly–another dubious assumption) suggest that the stomach of a normal individual should empty more-or-less totally in about 3-4 hours after eating, which means that the 8 hour fasting period would be in the nature of a generous safety factor (and a 12+ hour fast would be a very, very generous one).
Like HorseloverFat suggested (I think), it’s a “bureaucratic” convenience to set up a standard time for the patient to stop eating, which allows a generous safety factor for the earliest operations, and avoids the risk of someone making a mistake and miscalculating the time that the pre-surgical fast should begin.
When I had my surgery a few months back, I had the same restriction: no food after midnight the night before. I made a Gremlins joke about every time it was mentioned (which was three or four times by different staff members) during my pre-op visit. I never, not ONCE got a anything more than a odd, what-are-you-talking-about type look out of them. Very disappointing. Anyhow, best of luck with your procedure!
When I got there I told them I hadn’t eaten since right at midnight. Mind you it’s 2:00pm at this point, and I’m not feeling any more hungry than I might normally by 10:00am when I eat 4 hours early at night, so it’s not an issue for me at all.
They didn’t ask what I ate or anything.
They asked if I drank any liquid since then. I said that I’ve had about 4 ounce of water since midnight. They freaked! I thought they were going to cancel the surgery.
Did I drink it all at once? No.
How did I drink it? Little sips.
Why did you drink it? Your instructions told you not to! My mouth was dry, I took a few sips around 4am, a few more around 6am, a few more around 10am. It might have been less than 4 ounces.
There were 4 of them standing over me running the questionnaire at the time, and they all gave pensive looks to each other. I think someone had to go verify with the doctor that it was OK that I might have had all that water.
They eventually did the surgery, and I’m still alive.
The last couple of times I’ve needed to do a medical fast (blood tests, in both cases), I was told that the rule was 8 hours before, and advised to schedule the test for early in the morning and save breakfast for after, to make it easier. In that case, it wasn’t just a matter of the digestive system emptying, but for blood sugar (I’m guessing, and probably other chemicals) to reach equilibrium, so it makes sense that it would be longer than just the gut time.
My dad made a similar mistake when he had his prostate surgery a few years back. He made himself a 4-6 oz cup of herbal tea in the morning, and they had to postpone his surgery to one later in the afternoon. Like you, I’d be mighty uncomfortable going from midnight to 2 p.m. without water. There’s not a single night I don’t wake up to get at least one drink of water, more like two or three.
:dubious: This is why they try to make the instructions simple. (Next time, swish the water around your mouth and spit it out.) Edit: pulykamell - does your doctor know this? I can’t remember the last time I’ve woken up at night for anything other than a loud noise. (IANAD/N, etc.)
[hijack]Really, most places do try to make instructions simple so patients can remember and follow them, and yet people still don’t. I’ve had two study patients in a row now who had to have a fasting blood draw at 8 am. I called them the afternoon before to remind them of the instructions: Nothing to eat after midnight, nothing to drink except water, and please take your medications as normal… and both of them skipped their meds for high blood pressure. Both of them hit 160/100 and up when I took their blood pressure, which means that made me fill out a crapload of paperwork (because they’re in medical research studies and those are Very Bad BP Results) and tell them they were going to the ER if their BPs didn’t settle down after they took their meds. Fortunately, all was well after that.[/hijack]
Never thought to mention it. In my experience, lots of people like to have a glass of water by their bedside when they sleep. I had a physical recently, and all checked out fine. I neglected to mention that I’m generally a mouth breather, especially when I sleep, so I’ve always figured that was the reason for my dry mouth. I also always wake up to go to the bathroom, as I tend to have a beer or wine before I go to sleep. That would also help explain the dehydration. I’ve never been a straight-through-the-night sleeper, and I actually feel cheated if I wake up without any interruption.
Oh, and one more important thing. It may also be conditioning. When I was a little kid, from 3 years old to pretty much up to my pre-teen years, whatever parent was working the morning shift would get up at 4 a.m., make themselves breakfast, and bring me and my brother a cup of tea with milk, we’d drink it and go back to sleep. I always look forward to my middle-of-the-night water. It always tastes so satisfying. So, it’s never occurred to me that it’s anything unusual.
I also keep a cup of water next to the bed, and drink from it 2-3 times a night. I’m a light sleeper, and any little noise will wake me up. Neighbors in the apartment complex wake me up throughout the night, and a sip of water makes me feel better.
I breathe through my mouth too, but I find using those nose strips that open hour nose wider helps with that some. Also, sleeping on my side makes me breathe through my mouth less. Less dry mouth is a positive result. Also, less of a scratchy throat in the morning, and my tongue doesn’t feel like it’s wearing a sweater. I still like the water, though.
Thanks for all the well wishes. I may post some [TMI] pictures when I feel up to sitting on the computer for more than 10 minutes straight
FWIW, getting up in the middle of the night to drink and piss is often a symptom of diabetes mellitus (I speak from personal experience here).
Given what pulykamell and SeanArenas have said, I doubt that’s an issue for either of them. Just mentioning it for the benefit of anyone else reading this thread.
My guess is that, given recovery time from the surgery, you’ll be pushing a 24 hour fast before you’re thinking about your next meal, and I’ll wager you won’t be wanting to polish off a 20 oz. sirloin with all the trimmings when you do get around to eating.