To want to experience a general anaesthetic again?

[slightlyovertiredalways]

Or something like it?!

I had a general anaesthetic for the first time a few months ago, and as someone who struggles with sleeping the feeling was unreal. One second I felt a bit drunk, the next I was waking up from the deepest sleep of my life with a warm blanket on me and someone bringing me tea and toast 😂 some nights when I’m extra tired and struggling to sleep I think about that feeling and crave it in a weird way.

Is there anything I can do to help me sleep in that way?!

zopiclone makes me feel like that!! It’s super addictive but my GP prescribes it.
you can buy it from online pharmacy’s. I really struggle with sleep but the first night I took one I slept like my DH!

Oh it's a lot more common to feel completely wiped out after one and to have nausea/vomiting/shaking etc.

I woke up a little teary but after that passed I felt so amazing I would love to have it again 😂

I agree OP, I've had 4 GAs and it's the most amazing sleep ever! I remember coming round from the last one feeling so relaxed and comfy and snug I didn't want to wake up. A nurse kept coming round and gently shaking me asking if I wanted a cup of tea or something to eat. I just kept saying "no thank you", turning over and going back to sleep. I didn't realise until she eventually told me that it was actually a requirement to make sure I wasn't going to be sick, I just thought she was being nice 😂

Between never having slept well in my life and an autistic DS who's never slept well either, having an operation was fantastic in many ways.

Though it turns out codeine gives me horrendous hallucinatory nightmares, so that wasn't so fun. Very little risk of addiction there.

I don't think the sleeping will is just to do with the GA though. I had a birthmark removed from my scalp, no GA, just a local. I slept really well for the next few nights, I assumed it was to do with the healing.

I think it’s a most bizarre feeling. Not at all unpleasant but also nothing like sleep. It’s like just nothingness. One minute awake. Next minute awake. The middle bit just didn’t exist.

Yes that’s how I would describe it. I’m always aware I’m asleep but not after the GA

Oh is that why they do it? They never told me that.

They don't get anywhere with me as I just refuse! After my last GA I got so tired of them offering me food, I ordered a tray of sandwiches - the smell made me want to PUKE, so I hid them in the bathroom and told the nurse that they were delicious.

I'll take it more seriously next time!

I don’t like being unwell and unfortunately I’m ill quite often, but it’s such a relief to crawl into bed while I’m really bad and just give in. That’s one reason I’m not keen on the summers that we have now because being hot and unwell is awful whereas I find that being in a warm bed when unwell, with a hot drink, is much better

No I think we’re all discussing the relaxation after you come round, not the experience of actually being under

I wish I had a friend like you to train with. I just dont have the self control. It is the most amazing feeling, I agree

Ahh OK I read it wrong! Relaxation after isn't too common either, more exhaustion. Lucky if you don't have any side effects 🙂

You're all loopy! 😅 I've managed to avoid GAs so far and would only have one if I absolutely had to. Both my ORIF (fixing plate and screws) for my ankle fracture, and my total hip replacement after I broke my hip, were done under spinal block without sedation. I think it's because I'm a bit of a control freak. It was funny being in recovery seeing all the GAs coming round and speaking gibberish when they came round. You're welcome to it! 😅

Yes. We know. Even those of us that just got our Girl Guide First Aid badge. That’s not what we’re discussing.

apologies….think it must’ve been these lines that confused me… ‘the next I was waking up from the deepest sleep of my life’… ‘Is there anything I can do to help me sleep in that way?!’. 😜

I was a nurse back in the late 70s, working nights. One night a patient said she didn't need her 2 Mogadon tablets, so I just dropped them into my pocket and carried on the medicine trolley round.

At around 5am I had a terrible headache and found 2 paracetamol in my pocket that I took. The other staff had to put me in a spare bed as I was falling asleep on my feet. (We actually had spare beds in the NHS back then). One of them had to run me back to the nurses home at shift end and put me to bed. I slept through all day and the following night and morning. Felt brilliant when I woke thought.

I’m home now after an op yesterday. I noticed today that I wrote a post on here last night. I have NO recollection of it. I was so Ill post op and needed IV Anti emetics. The GA wiped me out

Antihistamines.

Melatonin?

It feels exactly like a sleep though and even surgeons describe it as you being put to sleep

Nah, there’s no deep velvet vibe with that stuff.

My doctor once told me an interesting thing in relation to melatonin. It has never had any effect on me though she was happy enough to prescribe it when I asked.
She explained that there are two types of insomniac (and disregarding those for whom sleeplessness is merely a temporary blip in an otherwise ‘sleep -competent’ existence.)
She said something about one type of stubborn sleep problem being the ‘dirty’ kind, though god knows how it acquired this tag. (Unless she meant as in ‘playing dirty’, or ‘dirty tricks’? That’d make sense I guess.)

Anyway this sort isn't fixed by melatonin because the problem isn't to do with any production issue with any hormone or brain chemical, but is instead psychological in origin, even if you've been sleepless since you were a little kid. Especially then.

[She reckons at some point I made myself scared of falling asleep as a child, and that fear turned into a major psychological block, and the fear itself was forgotten. Sleep was now the enemy for a different reason, because it just refused to come no matter how knackered I was.
That kind of insomnia responds only to a narcotic approach (assuming other avenues such as CBT have been exhausted)
You have to be chemically knocked on the head to stop you from subconsciously preventing yourself from sleeping! What a way to carry on. 🙄 ]

I agree with @PurpleAxe, although it's been many years (decades) since I was able to work out to that extent.
In the meantime I have had several GAs and haven't found any of them to be restful.

I’ve had so many of them and love them too

Phenergan knocks me out like this. Used as a sedative impatient mental health, 50g and you’ll be happy sleepy Larry. 😬

Last time I awoke from a GA I remember announcing to everyone I'd just had such a lovely dream.

Even better they put a catheter in so I didn't even have to get up for a wee after.

Reading these posts you can see why overdosing heroin addicts get so angry at paramedics giving them the antidote that is saving their lives ☹️