aibu to be scared stiff of general anaesthetic?

[levington]

Please don't be harsh with me, I appear to be in need of an operation for gallstones, and general anaesthetic is required to operate. I know perhaps I am being silly, but I am absolutely terrified and honestly don't think I am going to survive the op. I'm desperate to find a solution of either not having the op or getting over fear of g.a.

It's normal to be scared, talk to the consultant and the anethatist (sp)

Don't try to avoid the operation, the risks of the ga are tiny and much better than carrying on in pain.

Hi! I was exactly the same.Needed to have a wisdom tooth out but could not bear to be awake so chose a GA. I got myself into a right state about it.Think its when you have children you panic something terrible will happen to you.Can I please assure you it was completely fine.The people at the hospital were lovely.Once they give you the anaesthetic it works so quickly.The next thing I remember is coming round after.Did not know a thing about the op.The pain of having the tooth out after was the worse bit.The GA was a breeze.you will be just fine.

Honestly you will look back & laugh at how worried you were.I had seriously convinced myself I would die or I would be able to feel everything but be trapped in my body unable to tell anyone I could feel it all! & you thought you were a loon!

YANBU at all to be afraid. Fears/phobias are funny beasts and we all have them to a greater or lesser extent.

I suggest reading up about modern anesthetics, they are very, very safe these days.

I had to travel about 7 miles to the hospital when I last had a GA and the lovely nurse actually worked out for me that I was over 50 times more likely to be killed en route to the hospital in a car accident than to have a serious adverse reaction to the GA.

Kind of put it in perspective for me but I was still a bit scared

Best wishes for your op.

I had a G.A. for a minor op about 4 years ago, didn't tell anyone I was afraid I wouldn't wake up from it (daft).

I was under for less than an hour, and when I woke up, it was like I had had a LOVELY nap (the op was for something that meant I could only sleep on my side and I woke up perfectly comfortably lying on my back for the first time in a year.

You will be fine.

I know it's impossible not to worry. I've had two ga's in the last two years and it was all fine, really . I had a pre-op appointment the week before the first surgery with a nurse to discuss any concerns, blood pressure, allergies etc. The anaesthetist came round on the day of my op and my history and any worries were discussed again. The moment of having the stuff syringed in was actually quite pleasant or maybe I'm a bit weird. Have the surgery, you'll be fine.

Sorry meant to say YANBU to be afraid (after all, there are people with much worse phobias) but I bet everything will be grand.

I am still reading and thanks for the comments. But am I no mood to answer but this does not mean to say I am not taking comments on board so please continue.

Would it help you to know more about the process of a GA? What are your specific concerns?

Not waking up from the op is my biggest concern.

(sorry, I posted my message before I saw the bit about you not answering anything)

x post again

I was so convinced I would not survive my last op that I said poignant goodbyes and asked a very dear friend if he would say nice things about me at my funeral, I am still here!

If you are otherwise healthy then the risk of the journey to hospital is higher than the risk of a GA.

Do you understand the process of the GA? - that as soon as they remove the anaethetic you start to come round - you wake up as the drug leaves your system, rather than anything active needing to be done to bring you round.

No, I don't understand any of it, hiveofbees, please tell more.

levington It is absolutely normal to feel afraid of GA. It is a very powerful 'handing over' of control to other people, and becoming very helpless (which can be a terrifying feeling). So please don't feel there is anything wrong with being afraid, its the most natural reaction.

The good thing is that GA is incredibly successful and statistically safe (many, many surgeries are done under GA every single day), you will have a team of people there who are all looking out for you, drugs that can immediately reverse anaesthetic, and backup emergency equipment that can breathe for you if needed.

These teams do surgeries day in, day out, over and over again and are generally very practiced and good at what they do. And routine surgery (gallstones) is about as low risk as it gets.

hiveofbees is right, the journey in the car is statistically the riskiest part of the whole thing.

Wishing you all the best, and a speedy recovery. :)

I've had ga three times and each time was absolutely fine, the anaesthetist is dedicated to you for the whole operation and the surgeons and other professionals do their own bits. You will be fine! You fall asleep very quickly, less than 10 seconds! When you wake up you just feel sleepy and probably hungry! Have a chat to the aneasthetist at the hospital as they usually come to say hello and ask you a few questions before the op.

Just some (admittedly very basic) stats to try and help with the fear:

Chance of death from a road traffic accident (in a whole year) = 1 in 20,000 (thats 0.00005%)
www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/Risk/trasnsportpop.html

Chance of death from having general anaesthetic = 1 in 100,000 (0.00001%)
www.nhs.uk/conditions/Anaesthetic-general/Pages/Definition.aspx

In other words, you are 99.9999% safe :)

I had my gall bladder removed 18 months ago. I'd never had a GA. I wasn't too bad until the anaesthetic room, where it seemed chaos and busy. I remember feeling panicky but by that point I'd gone under.

I had to have another GA 14 weeks later and I explained how I had felt. When I went along to the room, I found only 1 nurse and the anaesthetist in the room and it made a huge difference. Have you had a pre op? If not mention it then. Before the op the anaesthetist will come to visit you, express your concerns. They do this job every day and will be able to help you.

I was able to have heavy sedation 8 weeks ago and felt fine with it.

Good luck x

YANBU as it is normal to be apprehensive however apparently more people die each year from swallowing pens at work than they do from a GA!

OP I have had 3 GAs in the last year. Honestly, nothing to worry about. I actually wasn't scared about them, but they sit you down with an anaesthetist beforehand who goes through your med history and answers any questions v thoroughly.

Then they get you changed and you have to wear lovely fetching support stockings to stop you getting DVT. I recommend bringing a book as there is a lot of waiting at that point, in my hospital anyhow. I brought something light to take my mind off waiting.

Then you go through and climb up onto a bed/ gurney. You have a blanket over you, so it feels pretty secure. They inject an analgesic (painkiller) into one hand and put a drip in. When you have the analgesic everything goes a bit spinny, but in a nice way. When that happens, they get you to breathe into an oxygen mask and the world 'stabilizes' a bit. Then they put the actual GA drug through the drip and you're out in seconds.

In my hosp they have you facing a clock when you go to sleep and another when you wake up, so you feel 'oriented'. I liked that.

The first thing they say to you when you wake up is 'You've had the surgery'. So that helps too.

Also, I was worried about having horrible dreams. I am quite unusual and I did dream or have some type of awareness during the GA. But it was fine, not nasty at all, just some type of sensation of time passing and voices and then I woke up. Bit like having a 'morning dream'.

hth

If you are really that scared of ga they may be able to do a spine block and a sedative. This is what they did to my great grandma, but she was in her 90s at the time! (they were reluctant to give ga cos of her age), they also did the spine block and sedative to my dad when he broke his hip (again reluctant for ga due to medical history)

Anaesthetist will be able to explain more/give you more options.

Fit n healthy, no previous medical history, you're going to be ok under ga ! The only problems I had under ga was I told the nurse that my doctor had a lovely accent!

Dear god the idea of a spine block scares me rigid. Conjures up an imagine of enormous needles and my spine Tell me I'm wrong.

Don't worry about the GA OP. You don't know you are going under, and you don't think you've been out when you're back. I was pleasantly surprised myself.

Course YANBU :) It's perfectly natural to be scared.

I can't be of much help on the facts and figures, but I did have an emergency appendectomy last year and I was absolutely bricking it waiting to go under. Honestly, though, it was not an awful experience. Going under was, really, just like falling asleep, and even though I was under for 3 hours in the end, when I woke up I just felt like I'd closed my eyes for 5 minutes. Apart from the obvious discomfort you'd expect after having something removed, I was quite comfortable and relaxed.

You'll be fine :)

I won't be harsh because I was your shoes a few months ago. I needed an operation to fix my broken nose and despite having operations before, I just had a bad feeling. Everything was fine, of course and the anaesthetist spent a lot of time with me reassuring me which actually did help. I'd also phoned the ward the day before so they were aware I was hyper anxious and so, they were extra supportive when I was admitted. You can ask to have something like diazepam before to keep your calm. Something you also can do is ask to have the anaesthetic in the anaesthetic room. I've had operations where they've given it to me in the operating theatre which is slightly less relaxing.

Good luck! x