My girlfriend had a general anesthesia for some eye surgery that took place almost a month ago. She is reporting that she has been sleeping 12 hours a day instead of her usual 7. Any ideas? I would think any after effects would have long passed. She is under good medical care, but I would appreciate any info about this.
Many general anesthetics are fat soluble and get “absorbed” by the fat cells in the body. When the anesthetic in your blood stream is gone, you wake up. But the anesthetic in your fat cells comes out slowly over time, and can make you feel drowsy for weeks. When I was involved in surgery cases (15+ yrs ago), we advised people who had had general anesthetic not to drive for a month. If she was “under” for several hours, this may be the case.
Would you have a cite for this?
This has piqued my interest because it could explain why I have spent the greater part of this year asleep. I underwent two lengthy emergency surgeries (7+ hours) back in January (was given a 1% chance of survival :eek: ) and was subsequently “kept under” for three weeks to help my body heal.
Since then I have been sleeping at least 12 hours per day, and it comes upon me very suddenly in approx 4-hour chunks of sleep. Would like something to print off and show my doc as a possible explanation.
It might be relevant that I am somewhat over-blessed with fat cells. 
Wouldn’t it also matter what specific type of anesthesia is used? Aren’t a bunch of different types being used? She was under for maybe an hour to an hour and a half, if that helps. When I google this I get a bunch of gobbledeygook that I can’t understand. 
Bump. Anyone?
I had the same thing when I had my wisdom teeth taken out. I was sleeping 14, 16 hours a day.
I seemed to sleep a lot for some time after I had emergency hernia surgery, even though it was a short and fairly routine surgery.
I always attributed it to the simple fact that my body was trying to recover from the shock of the surgery, and repair all the parts the doctors cut open. I was pretty weak and tired in general for quite a while.
Not to unduly alarm anyone, but some fairly recent studies suggest that general anesthesia can have negative effects that linger for a year or more: Even When Surgery Is Over, Sedation’s Risks Could Linger.
Not to unduly alarm anyone, but some fairly recent studies suggest that general anesthesia can have negative effects that linger for a year or more: Even When Surgery Is Over, Sedation’s Risks Could Linger.