What you need to know about anesthesia

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

How to prepare for the operation and what to tell the doctor about so that the anesthesia is not scary.

What is anesthesia?

Anesthesia is a decrease in the sensitivity of the body. Usually it is used so that a person does not feel pain during operations or during any medical procedures.

Pain is the reaction of our brain to impulses that come from special receptors. If these impulses cannot reach the brain, then we will not feel pain. This is what anesthesia does.

Local anesthesia "blocks the road" for pain signals at the nerve level. And the general one works directly with the brain: it prevents it from perceiving external stimuli.

What is anesthesia?

Anesthesia and pain relief can be divided and grouped according to many different parameters, but the patient needs to know about three types of anesthesia:

1. Local. With it, a small part of the body is turned off, and even then not completely. For example, they block nerves near an aching tooth or a superficial wound. The nerve impulse from the blocked area does not reach the brain, and we do not feel pain.
2. Regional. This is an anesthesia in which a part of the body is completely deprived of sensitivity. For example, spinal and epidural anesthesia, in which a person does not feel what is happening below the waist, is just such a type. In this case, the patient is often immersed in sleep so that it is not psychologically difficult for him to be at his own operation.
3. General. With her, the person is "turned off" completely. Only this kind of anesthesia is called anesthesia.

What is sedation?

Sedation is the use of medication to calm and relax the patient. It can be used in conjunction with anesthesia. For example, together with a local one for dental treatment (if someone is very afraid of dentists) or together with an epidural or spinal one (this is the very dream that eliminates psychological discomfort). At the same time, depending on the situation, the patient can remain conscious.

What is the best anesthesia?

The one that the doctor will select for you. Anesthesiologists take into account the nature of the operation, the patient's condition, and his concomitant diseases. Based on this, they choose which drug and how it will be administered for anesthesia. This is not to say that one method or drug is definitely better than the other.

This is dangerous?

Anesthesia is a complex and lengthy process that often begins long before the operation (if it is not urgent, of course). They carefully prepare for it, and the patient's condition is monitored with the help of devices. The effect of anesthesia on cognitive function and on thinking is still being studied and efforts are being made to minimize it.

Nowadays, serious consequences are rare, and more often they are associated with the type of surgery, and not with the pain relief. To reduce the risks, be sure to follow your doctor's recommendations.

What are the complications of anesthesia?

Any serious interference with the body can cause a side effect, anesthesia is no exception. The most common unpleasant consequences of anesthesia are:

1. Nausea and vomiting. Appear in the first few days after the operation, they must be reported to the doctor.
2. Sore throat. The consequence of the introduction of an inhalation tube. This goes away by itself, and a warm drink helps to cope with discomfort.
3. Confused consciousness. The consequence of the action of drugs passes in a few hours. In rare cases, this condition lasts for several days, and cognitive decline may occur in patients with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.
4. Muscle pain. Before surgery, patients are given medications that relax the muscles. This is necessary in order to apply ventilation of the lungs, but after the operation, the action of the medication reminds of itself with pain.
5. Itching. Appears after some types of narcotic pain relievers.
6. Chills. Perhaps this is due to the fact that it is usually cold in the operating room.

After epidural or spinal anesthesia, you may have head or back pain at the injection site, and you may have difficulty urinating.

With local anesthesia, side effects are rare, but allergic reactions to drugs are possible.

What should I tell the doctor about before the operation?

The number one task is to honestly and fully answer the questions of the anesthesiologist. The patient's answers influence the choice of anesthesia, so the doctor should be told about:

1. The medicines you are taking. What you drink constantly and what you have taken recently. You even need to remember about vitamins and nutritional supplements.
2. Allergies, even if they are reactions to pollen, food or latex, and not to drugs.
3. Health problems. For example, high or low blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, ulcers, asthma, or kidney disease. In general, it is necessary to tell about everything.
4. Pregnancy. Even if it seems to you that the belly is visible to everyone. And even more so if it is not noticeable or you only suspect pregnancy.
5. Operation history. If you have ever had anesthesia before, tell us how you got it, especially if you had problems.

What should be done before the operation?

Follow the doctor's recommendations. If it is forbidden to eat 8 hours before the operation, it means that you cannot eat anything, even gnaw seeds. If it is forbidden to drink, then even a glass of water must be agreed with the anesthesiologist.

Ask someone from relatives, friends, or at least roommates to be with you and make sure that you understand correctly and write down all the recommendations: before the operation, because of anxiety, you may miss something.

Stop smoking for a while. If you do not handle a cigarette within 12 hours before surgery, the risk of complications after anesthesia will be significantly reduced.

What to do after surgery?

Since after anesthesia, medications can still affect the patient's condition for some time, the best thing to do is to allow the body to recover. This means following the recommendations - the very ones that were written down in advance.

Even if the intervention was minor, anesthesia was local, and sedation was light, do not drive for 24 hours and do not make important decisions, do not sign financial papers, and so on.

Can you wake up on the operating table?

Sometimes the patient regains consciousness and can hear what is happening in the operating room. This happens very rarely, even during operations with regional anesthesia. Also, no pain is felt.

I have a bad heart. May I have anesthesia?

Operations are carried out on a sick heart. Indeed, the risks of any complications after anesthesia are higher if the patient has diseases of the cardiovascular system, but for this, an anesthesiologist is needed who will choose anesthesia that corresponds to the patient's condition.