I had leg surgery to repair tissue damage from a car accident several years ago. I don’t recall anything from the moment I was sedated until maybe a day or two after surgery. Well, no, I might remember something weird and vague, but I generally don’t believe it to be true. I’ve seen family members and friends post surgery still under the effects of anesthesia and it was always hilarious. I often wonder what I said or did after my surgery but no ones ever told me.
I think for the better part of a year my sense of smell and taste were way off. Most foods tasted sour or metallic to me. I only used prescription pain killers for maybe a few weeks and sparingly before switching over to mostly OTC stuff. I still had a few written out each month for the worst nerve attacks I’d get but I had those locked away. I found a cold spray (the soccer one) that worked a treat for post surgical nerve pain. That nerve pain took about 2 or 2.5 years to go away on its own. I feel great now.
Thanks. No particular brand but I was able to buy Medi First in stores. It’s a propellant with alcohol and a topical analgesic. It won’t do much for a serious internal injury but it can relieve and trick your mind into thinking your fine.
My irritation was just under the surgical holes because I had minimally invasive, but it still itched and ached like hell for a long time. I have a limited understanding of human biology because I didn’t major in it and barely paid attention in high school, but what I gather is that pain also increases temperature in an area of the body, and if you reduce that temperature you reduce the pain and swelling associated with it.
When I was buying it, it was about 15 bucks a can and it was hard to find so I’d buy several cans at once. Now it’s all over the place.
As for versed and its friends, I had carpal tunnel surgery on Monday. Anesthesia was a nerve block and a protocol called MAC, or monitored anesthesia care, which left me able to respond to directions but unable to feel or remember anything. From my perspective it was just like full general anesthesia where I felt the funny stuff entering my arm, <blink> “We’re all done!” but nowhere as “deep.” From the pre-op visit with the anesthesiologist, he used a mix of versed, propofol, and ketamine.
Ugh. I’ve had bad experiences with both Versed and Propofol, and I’m not looking forward to needing to have them in the future.
I was in the recovery room for an hour after a recent endoscopy, recovering from Propofol, after a long discussion with the anesthesiologist where I begged him to give me as little as possible.
I know this may sound crazy, but…after a two surgeries last year that required being under general anesthesia for 6-8 hours, one curious side effect afterwards was that I sensed someone else in my head for a day or so while recovering at home. She was quick-witted and funny, made jokes, was quite entertaining. It wasn’t as apparent the second time, but it was sort of trippy. I had ideas for great art projects. I have had endoscopy and colonoscopies, and didn’t have this type of reaction, so I think it was more the length of time I was out rather than the drug given. I was hoping to read that someone else had a similar experience.
Your reaction to Versed seems odd (no amnesia) as it is, in fact, an amnesiac. My only experience with it was during a colonoscopy where I got the standard Versed plus Fentanyl combo (standard unless one is going for the Propofol total knock-out, which I understand was once considered the “modern” way to anaesthetize for colonoscopies but is increasingly discouraged, at least around here).
I suppose the effects vary with individual and with dosage, but it pretty much totally knocked me out. I was obviously conscious because I have very, very faint memories of vague discomfort, but pretty much nothing else. When I become fully aware in a recovery area, I literally had no idea how long I’d been there. It was powerful stuff but in no way unpleasant, and I’d have no hesitation in asking for the same combination next time, provided I was confident I’d get an adequate dose. I’ve heard about people who’ve had terribly painful colonoscopies.
<shrug> When I had my power port put in, even though I had versed light sedation I can clearly remember going in, being transferred to the table, draped, local injections going in, cutting/tugging and chat. I know that cutting down a blood vessel in my collarbone area had to have been reasonably painful, but I was assured afterwards that I was pretty much there the whole time. But then again, I can have ideosyncratic reactions to meds, I pop up totally coherent and ready to go after being out for several hours - we shocked the nurses once when as soon as they rolled me into the room after recovery and mrAru gave me a 10 piece nuggets and quart of iced tea and it was gone before they could bring me the official ginger ale and crackers. I was really hungry, between various attempts to get me into the operating room, imaging and other assorted medical-fu I pretty much hadn’t managed to eat for the entire week.
The intubation requirements are quite different for true general anesthesia versus the procedures that use something lighter.
I’m quite sure I had an endotracheal tube when I had my septoplasty 30ish years back, as I have a very, very, very, very faint memory of the tube being pulled. I don’t know what they used when I had my gallbladder removed 10 years back.
With my wrist surgery last year, they used a regional block like you had. I’m pretty sure they gave me something stronger than the sedation, though of course I don’t know for sure, not having asked for my medical records. They said they would probably be able to get by with something that wasn’t a full-on endo tube; I remember asking about the topic here some years back. Possibly a laryngeal mask airway. I do know that in the preop visit when the doc said “regional block” I asked “That’s ** in addition to **, not instead of general, right?” (as local anything has never worked well for me).
Pretty sure all of these involved Versed and Fentanyl as induction agents - cetainly with my 2 surgeries, I went from “room tilting” to “in recovery” in a blink.
My husband had surgery last year which was done with a combination of an epidural (it was knee surgery) and heavy sedation. I’m sure he wasn’t fully intubated either; not sure he even had an LMA (not sure he didn’t either).
For all my sedation procedures (colonoscopies, recent cataract surgery) i know I had nothing like that, just a nasal cannula. Those all definitely involved Versed/Fentanyl or Propofol.
For people who’ve had issues with Versed and/or Fentanyl (or others in those classes): in the future, ask about having an antagonist administered vs just having it wear off. I have no clue whether that would actually help. One of the concerns with propofol is that there’s no antagonist, so if you have a bad reaction, or are overdosed, there’s nothing to do but provide supportive care until you clear it on your own.
ThelmaLou: glad the vision is doing well!! A friend just had both eyes done, a week apart, and found that the first eye hurt more in general than the second one. She asked the doctor, who said it all boils down to the doctor’s handedness. Because the doc is right handed, she has to go into the left eye from one above and the the right from below (or maybe vice versa), and the upper eye has more nerve bundles than the lower, so there’s more pain. She said that left-handed doctors’ patients complain about the opposite eye hurting more :).
Re your stomach: I’d bet you’re on eyedrops that include a steroid, right? That’s well known for causing upset; while I didn’t have that issue from the drops, oral prednisone will have me churning acid like crazy. Perhaps you’re more sensitive to even small amounts of prednisone (or the NSAID the drops also contain).
That’s very interesting! I’ve been on three drops a day for the past two weeks and go to two a day tomorrow for a week, then one a day for a week. My stomach has been very upset today. Thanks.
Chemo brain. I would forget words and names, I forgot mrAru’s name, our roomie’s name, my cat for Ghu’s sake. I have a light bit of aphasia normally, but can switch between languages when it gets bad [I can frequently remember my words when they aren’t in English …makes for a rather funky almost ‘secret language’ between mrAru and myself, as we also add in Zarathustran Fuzzy, Klingon, Elven, Dwarvish and Dothraki.] and I can attest that it is disconcerting to have to make notes of something if I wan to make sure that I address everything in my mind. It is getting better, been off chemo for 5 months now. I do much better in writing because I can stop and think, rewrite and edit.
I am a person of words - and it is a horrifying glimpse into what will happen if I end up with Alzheimers, and just reinforces my determination to off myself when or if it happens.
You guys all had anesthesia for standard cataract surgery*? baffled
I had 10mg of benzo and a constant drip of some local analgesic in combination with some antibiotic. No muss, no fuss and the thing that hurt the most was when they attached the clamp thingy that forced my eyelids open.I was home 20 minutes after surgery.
I was extremely light sensitive the following day, due to the dilapidated pupil. It kinda freaked me out, since it hadn’t bothered me the day before. Called the nurse who assured me that the analgesic kept that pain away the same day as the surgery. Sure enough, the very next day, I was right as rain.
Frankly, I’m baffled that you’re baffled that people have anesthesia for cataract surgery.
Apparently some docs do it without and some docs insist on it. I had done some research, and because I had a bad reaction to the anesthesia after my first one, I asked the doc if he had ever done the surgery without the patient having anesthesia. He has done THOUSANDS of cataract surgeries in his career, and he had only done ONE without anesthesia. It was a staff member of the practice and the person did not want anesthesia. I said I’d just as soon not be the second person he performed the surgery on without anesthesia. I had a big talk with the anesthesiologist and did not have a bad reaction the second time, but still felt woozy for a couple of days.
Most of my friends who have had cataract surgery had anesthesia. Some did not.
Apropos of anesthesia, this was in the Washington Post online today. I think this applies to long surgeries where you’re under for hours. But still revealing.
With my first cataract surgery in January the anesthesiologist gave me Versed and Fentanyl. That was standard.
Right before my second surgery about two months ago, the anesthesiologist came to talk to me and I told him how sick I had been after the first one. He said, “Do you think it was the Fentanyl that made you sick?” I said I didn’t know, but let’s skip it all the same. So he did. After the (second) surgery, my eyeball hurt, but I asked the nurse for a bag of ice, and after an hour the pain was much relieved. But I still felt that it was at least three days before the anesthesia (Versed) was out of my system. It might have been longer, but by three days I was feeling more or less like myself.
After the first surgery (with Fentanyl), major constipation. After the second one (without Fentanyl), no.
What was the cold spray you used?