posted
It’s not that rare, but people who "wake up" during surgery usually have lied to the anesthesiologist about their drug and or alcohol use
Posts: 1344 | From: San Francisco | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
My epidural never "took" completely and wore off completely by the time they started to cut me for my tubal ligation- OUCH. I am not one to yell- but I did very sternly inform the doctor that I felt him cut me. They gave me the gas and I ended up blissfully zoned out for the rest of it.
sherri- I don't use drugs or alcohol, and it happened to me.
ETA: I also have a problem with novacaine (sp?) working when getting dental work. I think some poeple's bodies just react to these things differently and unfortunatly dentists and doctors sometimes don't take your word for it. I have had 6 epidurals and not one of them worked. Everytime I go to the hospital or need something done (babies, kidney stones, etc.) I tell them this and they ignore me and give it to me anyway. The only thing they ever do is leave nice little scars on my back.
-------------------- "My Very Educated Mother Just Said Uh-oh! No...Pluto..."~ Steven Colbert Posts: 3256 | From: Somewhere in Ohio | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
A friend of a friend on a mom bulletin board I go to just delivered a baby via c-section. The epidural didn't thorougly numb her and, after getting through the first few layers, she could feel *everything*. They quickly put her to sleep and finished the job.
-------------------- "Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple." - Willy Wonka Posts: 388 | From: Michigan | Registered: Aug 2004
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smilodonna
The Red and the Green Stamps
posted
I don't quite understand something about this. It says that people become conscious under general anesthesia, but that the anesthesiologist doesn't notice. Is the autonomic nervous system of the person somehow depressed so that they are 'awake' but their body is unable to physically respond? Even animals (and I assume people) who are completely under general anesthesia have physical reactions to the surgery being performed.
From the anesthesia monitoring I've done on cats and dogs, I can tell you that when they get too light heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure go through the roof. Certain medical procedures also increase sympathetic tone, for example tugging on the ovarian pedicle during a spay requires a deeper plane of anesthesia than opening the abdominal wall does.
I guess the idea that I'm fumbling with is that a person who is aware during surgery is going to have a drastically elevated heart rate, causing the anesthesiologist to deepen the plane of anesthesia and hopefully put the person out. There must be some other factors I am unaware of that allow the person to be 'awake' without the sympathetic response that ought to accompany that.
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posted
It happened to my mother while she was giving birth to me by C-section - she was able to prove it (no-one belived her) by repeating the converstations she'd heard the delivery team having.
She said it was beyond agony, but hasn't spoken of it for years and I don't really like to pry. FWIW, she was and is a midwife herself by profession.
ETA: Oh, apparently I woke up during my breast reduction surgery and started moving/ talking. So I was told by the surgical team anyway - they said they'd given me morphine quick. I have no memory of any of that.
-------------------- "You watched it. You can't UNWATCH it." Posts: 1646 | From: UK | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Bach_girl: My epidural never "took" completely and wore off completely by the time they started to cut me for my tubal ligation- OUCH. I am not one to yell- but I did very sternly inform the doctor that I felt him cut me. They gave me the gas and I ended up blissfully zoned out for the rest of it.
sherri- I don't use drugs or alcohol, and it happened to me.
ETA: I also have a problem with novacaine (sp?) working when getting dental work. I think some poeple's bodies just react to these things differently and unfortunatly dentists and doctors sometimes don't take your word for it. I have had 6 epidurals and not one of them worked. Everytime I go to the hospital or need something done (babies, kidney stones, etc.) I tell them this and they ignore me and give it to me anyway. The only thing they ever do is leave nice little scars on my back.
I too have what has been called a rather extraordinary tolerance for pain medications, usually requring three times or more the dosage normally given. I'm not an alcoholic or a drug user. My mom has much the same tolerance, so I guess maybe it's a genetic thing.
After a lenghty procedure to remove an ingrown toenail that required nine (!) injections into my toe before I finally went numb, my doctor told me that I shouldn't waste money on cocaine, since it wouldn't have much effect on me. Thanks, doc.
Posts: 253 | From: Colorado | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I had an emergency C-Section. I have a high tolerance to meds. (No, I don't drink nor have I done drugs.)
I was scared to move when I started feeling everything. So I bore down and gritted my teeth. The anesthesiologist frantically started adding more to my IV. Finally he made the comment that he had given me enough drugs to kill a horse and dared not give me more.
Fortunately, the doctors were able to finish the procedure fairly quickly (though it felt like hours).
Posts: 39 | From: Alabama | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I've heard documentaries on this years ago. Some woman one time said she was awake but couldn't do a thing. She heard them saying their things they are doing and stuff. She could feel the things they are doing.
Sometimes I felt like I was awake at points, but not. Like when they put me down, I heard few sentences garbling up and then hearing deep sleep sounds of when I'm drugged out.
I felt bizzard for like five or ten minutes thinking I'm awake and then woke up in the surgery room hours later or in the wakeup clinic.
-------------------- Joseph Z Posts: 1356 | From: Woodbridge, VA | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:If you were able to grit your teeth you should have been able to move around to alert them?
Sorry if I was unclear... In my case, I was able to alert them. Hence why the anest. started to frantically add more drugs to the IV.
But I was terrified to move. Maybe this has happened to some of those patients. Shock set in and/or they were too terrified or in pain to even speak?
Posts: 39 | From: Alabama | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
A while ago, they had an article about a woman who went through most of her operation conscious but unable to do anything. If I remember right, they give her the drug to relax her muscles but didn't give anything against pain. They noticed the mistake when one staff member saw tears coming out of her eyes.
Gaaah, I suck at researching... Anybody remembers that event?
posted
When my wife was giving birth, the nursing staff "missed" with the epidural. My wife let me feel her pain by digging into my hand with her nails. I still have 2 small scars there.
I can't imagine the pain invloved if there was surgury involved.
Posts: 69 | From: Orlando, FL | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
New Scientist ran an article about it not long ago, and about new alarms being developed to alert surgeons to conscious but paralysed patients. In one of the cases they looked at there was a machine malfunction which meant that the patient involved recieved the muscle relaxant but not the anaesthetic. It also touched on resulting cases of PTSD resulting from the horrific trauma of consciousness during the procedure.
There are varying degrees of consciousness experieced - and pain.
Posts: 221 | From: Sydney | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Happened to me, sorta. I recall running into a fence playing a game at school, and they numbed my forehead up to apply the stitches. Well, they missed part of it, and a couple of the stitches went in through parts that weren't numbed. Yeah, it hurt, but I was already in a fair amount of pain from ripping my head open, so I didn't complain about it.
Also, dentists never seem to get the dose of novacain right for me, either. That was fun growing up.
posted
Muscle relaxants are routinely given with anaesthetic - if the former "works" but the latter doesn't, as Oualawouzou says, you can be fully awake during an operation but unable to alert the anaesthesiologist to the fact.
-------------------- Silence should never under any circumstances be construed as agreement. A lot of the time, it's simply a reflection that someone just said something so stupid that no response could possibly do it justice. - Ramblin' Dave Posts: 8528 | From: Nottingham, England | Registered: Feb 2000
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In my case, I was able to alert them. Hence why the anest. started to frantically add more drugs to the IV. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
