I’m having a minor surgery for sleep apnea next week, and I will be put under general anesthesia. Now, I know that I am blessed compared to any number of people with serious surgeries, but I have never been “put under” before, and am a little scared of the loss of control aspect.
Are the drugs mentally comforting as you are drifting off, or is it a “My God, I’m going under, maybe dying and I CAN’T MOVE!” feeling for some people?
Ten years ago, I had my wisdom teeth taken out and was given an IV drip which they called “twilight sleep”. When that stuff hit me, I could have been in heaven. I wanted to bottle it up and take it home.
Not in my experience. To me, it was like a black curtain descending (not in a scary way). I had to count back from 100 and got to about 97 and… oblivion. No thought, no sensation, no awareness until my anesthesia was reversed after the procedure.
I’ve been under once. I don’t even remember the countdown. They put the mask on, I guess I felt kinda tired (I really don’t remember), close my eyes, and when I open them I’m in recovery. Not at all like sleeping, just empty time.
It knocks you out so quickly you know nothing about it, it’s not like going to sleep where you gradually slip off. One minute the anesthesist is telling you to breath deeply next minute you’re slowly coming to on a trolley.
One side effect I did find, is that evening I had very vivd and strange nightmares.
What everyone else has said. The only time I’ve had general anesthesia they gave me a happy pill earlier in the morning, so I wasn’t worried about *anything *by the time they wheeled me into the OR.
What everyone here has said pretty much covers it. I’ve never been under a general myself but I work in the Recovery Room, so I help people wake up from it all the time. You can expect to feel sleepy, forgetful, and disconnected when you first wake up. You probably won’t realize that your procedure is over at first. Your throat will be irritated from the endotracheal tube, and you will probably have a nasal cannula or oxygen mask on your face – do NOT try to pull these off, as a) the oxygen helps you to wake up, and b) your nurses will become annoyed. If you have a history of post op nausea or of motion sickness, be sure to tell your anesthesiologist before you are put to sleep. They can give you medicines before you ever wake up to combat the nausea.
I don’t think I will have the endotracheal tube as the method, because it is a sleep apnea surgery with a removal of the tonsils, uvula, part of the soft palette and part of the base of the tongue…
I can’t imagine a mask in that situation. Is there IV general anesthesia?
I had a IV as at least part of my last general anesthesia. I can’t tell you if they used a mask after that because I “wasn’t there.” Or possibly they do something that only involves your nose, like oxygen.
I had an IV anesthesia when I had my wisdom teeth pulled. I started feeling slightly loopy and the next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery. All in all, not a bad experience.
I was last under for wisdom teeth extraction. It was definitely an IV induction: There was no mask involved as far as I knew. I made some small talk with the surgeon and anesthesiologist for a few seconds before I woke up, laughing and puking and acting like a stereotypical “happy drunk”, in post-op. Puking blood was never so much fun. From my perspective, there was no time in-between. I was flanked by “weepy”, a young female who wouldn’t stop crying, and “sleepy”, a young male who didn’t want to wake up.
“Can you show me the way to go home?
I’m tired and I wanna go to bed!
I had a little drink just an hour ago and it went right to my head.”
– Jaws
Going under is no problem, but waking up seriously sucks, at least for me the one time I had to go under.
I didn’t recognize people I knew. I recognized people I didn’t know. I asked the nurse on a date, and told her she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I couldn’t think, and was constantly struggling to make sense out of ordinary things I was seeing and feeling.
I actually couldn’t connect being thirsty to asking for water. I think I asked someone for “one of those things, like a pencil. A cylinder!” when all I wanted was something to drink. I was so frustrated, struggling against literally every thought my brain produced. It was almost like talking to a sleepwalking person, where they “almost” make sense, except that I was awake and aware of how stupid I sounded.
My pre-surgery “happy pill” was gas through a nasal tube for the wisdom teeth and shots for the gall bladder and knee, but other than that, what everyone else said. It felt like time had been spliced. There was no there, there in the middle.
I think all three had the anesthesia in the IV. The knee folks were kind and put the happy shot into the saline IV. The gall bladder folks went for the tukas.
I had surgery when I was 8 or 10 and it was pretty unpleasant but mostly due to surprise - they didn’t tell me what would happen. They told me to count down from 10, which I did, and when I got to about 8 my eyes began to close on their own. Surprised, I fought to keep them open but it was as if a hydraulic press were pushing down on my eyelids and I didn’t have the strength to fight it. I didn’t feel like I was falling asleep but rather that my body was being forcefully closed. I was out in a few seconds.
Had I actually been told that was going to happen, I don’t think it’d have been that unpleasant - but it was scary, I thought something had gone wrong.
Waking up I can’t remember - I had stitches to the side of and behind my eyes after the surgery so the discomfort of that trumped any other discomfort probably.
During my wisdom teeth IV sedation I didn’t go completely under. My mom said that during her procedure she didn’t remember anything.
I remember the whole thing, but I was happier than a mouse at Chucky Cheese. I remember the scalpel cutting my gums and a streamer of blood coming out of my mouth. I was happy at that, as it showed that the dentist was doing his duty. Damn those were good drugs. But they didn’t put me under…
That’s sort of what happened to me with my surgeries for my decubitus ulcer (see my recent posts for more on that). Long long ago and far away I tried sniffing glue a few times as a teenager. Go under was sort of reminiscent of glue sniffing - ringing/humming, vision fading out from the periphery in, and then I woke up in recovery. A few years ago I had some bladder surgery; that time I had a distinct sensation of warmth in my arm when (I assume) they injected stuff into my IV and then I woke up in recovery, with no recollection of any other symptoms in between.
When I was going under for a gastroenteroduodonectomy (they put in a camera to look around my stomach and throat) the nurse said “there may be a burning sensation” I never really felt it. Unlike others who felt an incredible groggyness when woken up I felt like I normally do when I wake up, a little bit heavy, the onyl difference (other than location) was doctors talkign to other patients, I think I actually (quietly) responded to a question to another patient. In my defense his name sounded a LOT like mine.
Edit, I don’t want this to worry you at all OP. But there are a minute handful of people that have a general resistance to anesthesea and may wake up (completely immobile and numb) during it. I’ve heard accounts ranging from, “I’m too loopy to care” to “freaking horrifying.” Like I said I wouldn’t worry about it, it’s like some of those side effects on medicines where they’re like “ih yeah, one of our patients spontaniously combusted once so we figure we;ll put it down as a potential side effect.”