Anyone had surgery under Sedation? What was it like? About to have tear duct surgery and I'm scared ((

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Hi everyone, I'm due to have surgery to address my blocked tear duct; I had an option to have it under general anaesthetic but I chickened out after reading re: risks and asked for sedation instead. Its not a huge surgery, but still - its about an hour long and involves cutting the face and making a hole in my nasal bone, putting a stent it etc.

I was told I will most likely be half asleep anyway, but I cant imagine this? How does it work? Will I feel anything? Anyone had the experience of having an operation under sedation?

I feel almost like chickening out, but it took me absolute ages to get to this point (to get a referral to Moorfields) and this is my second, and I assume the last chance, to address the issue of my tears not draining and causing my eye to itch, get filled with goo, and be wet and runny all the time (( I refused the first offer of surgery a year ago and since them my eye got so bad I now worry I will lose my eye sight.

I cant have general anaesthetic as I'm terrified of not waking up - my mum had routine surgery recently and they really struggled to bring her back, she nearly did not make it. I dont think I would ever agree to general anaesthetic unless it a question of life and death.

Hi OP

Yes it worked like a dream. Went from a constantly watering eye and numerous infections to it being pretty much back to normal. I had a bit of a black eye afterwards and had a week off work but I was fine.

I had a stent in the duct for about a month afterwards (couldn't feel it) which they removed via my nose in outpatients. That was a bit snotty but painless!

The scar has disappeared and the hole isn't noticeable at all.. I can feel it on the side of my nose though.

A couple of things.. have your eyelashes tinted beforehand cos they ban eye make up til after the stent is out. Also avoid face powders and the mineral type foundations. They didn't tell me beforehand!

Some of this may have changed.. it's several years since I had it done but I'd repeat it in a heartbeat.

I had surgery under sedation. Removal of anal tag. Did not feel a thing. Thankfully.

I had sedation for a wisdom tooth removal and remember only the beautiful pastel colours swirling in my mind. Couldn't speak much sense for the next hour, I was thinking straight but it wasn't coming out of my mouth 😅. Good job I had a driver. Then had a two hour nap and was right as rain, would happily do it again.

Thank you for advice!

I have not been able to wear any kind of make up as half of my face is constantly wet. All make up just ends up running down my cheek! ((

I'm incredibly fed up with this, its so unpleasant (( just hope it goes well, and most importantly, that it works!

I just hope people who said they felt the pain and hated the process had a different type of sedation (( I had local anaesthetic and no sedation for an impacted (sideways) tooth removal, that was brutal.

I was told the kind I will have is something called "deep sedation"

Depends on who's doing it. Most anaesthetists would rather have a GA than sedation by a non anaesthetist

Tbh when I do eye lists for anxiety I refuse to do sedation I only do GAs. Rationale being sedation is much lighter so if a bit of the surgery is suddenly more painful the patient can move (this is normal, the patient won't remember it, but I don't want any chance of movement when it's eye surgery which is far more delicate than say leg surgery)

Talk it through with the anaesthetist if it's a GA list rather than opthalmology doing their own sedation. Most of the times I've been told thus it's been a total misunderstanding of what has been said to them. Did she go to ICU?

I'm still waiting to have a final pre-surgery discussion but I was told there will be an anaesthetist and it will be an intravenous anaesthetic. The surgery is at Moorfields Eye Hospital and they apparently do thousands of them.

My father has had this twice now on each eye and both times under sedation.

I must admit when he described it, I felt squeamish but he said it was fine and improved his watery eyes no end.

I loved it when I was sedated over the summer 😂 I felt the first incision so they upped the sedation and I dosed off. I felt perfectly fine once back in recovery and the ward.

Once home it took about 48 hours to feel back to normal though. I spent those two days in bed but that was more the surgery than the sedation.

I’ve had this surgery and given how delicate it is I would opt for GA every time. I’ve had sedation for other ops and was capable of moving, I wouldn’t want this for this op.

The op itself was relatively pain free and easy to recover from. The only tricky bit was the instruction not to blow my nose or sneeze for the six weeks or so until it was healed and the stent removed. That and not lifting anything heavy afterwards - I had a nine month old baby and a toddler at the time!

I've been sedated a few times for dental work - I was anxious the first couple of times but I don't worry so much now. The worst bit for me was the thought of getting the needle in my hand but they actually just do it just below the bend of my arm, so it's not too bad. I feel quite sleepy afterwards - make sure someone collects you and takes you safely home to bed afterwards! Good luck.

I was supposed to be going under GA but the surgery list was delayed so the surgeon asked me to be sedated last minute to speed up the process. I was shitting myself having it sprung on me but they instantly relaxed me. The theatre staff are brilliant at chatting to you and my surgeon asked me what music I wanted to listen to but it was over before I knew it.

I had it for facial surgery to remove a large cyst on one side of my face which was close to my eye which made me very nervous. I don’t react well to a GA so was dreading it.
Don’t remember a thing. Counted down from 10 and then woke up in recovery. Felt a bit tired for a few days but that was it.
Recently had it for a gynae surgery which I know is very painful/intrusive and again was worried in case the pain woke me up. Again, don’t remember a thing.
Please be reassured that you will be in La-la land.
And good luck!

I had sedation for a colonoscopy and endoscopy. I may as well not have. I remember everything and could feel everything!

GA I’d choose every time

I had a leg amputated with spinal block, and sedation.
The anaesthetist was very pleased, said it made his life easier!
It was all good.
Good luck!

I have had loads of different things under sedation. The stuff they give for endoscopes is not the same as the stuff they give for surgery in the OR. Also depends on the anaesthetist, on the main I've been whacked out on propofol which was lovely, had no recollection but felt amazing after. I had a melanoma removed and many many stitches but the sedation was only light and was compos through the whole thing but no pain and sense of time was a bit awry.

Would always choose sedation as GA makes me sick.

Best of luck

Most sedation lists aren't done by anaesthetists in the uk

Ok but other than the endoscopy mine has been. For all intents and purposes it's been exactly the same as having under GA just they've chosen to use sedation instead as less risky fort me due to various medical conditions). Most other patients on the same theatre list have been GA.

Have had 8 surgeries/procedures in past year alone!

Yea theatre lists are done by us (anaesthetists), mom theatre lists eg eyes/bronchoscopy/dental/Endoscopy etc are done by the treating clinician and different drugs to what we use to sedate (I assumed you were abroad as we don't call our theatres ORs)

OP you really need to take the advice of the people actually looking after you as they know what the surgical options/limitations are, what your relevant medical history is and whether there's likely to be any sort of hereditary cause for whatever happened to your Mum. Moorfields is a super-specialist hospital, they do this sort of thing multiple times a day every single day of the week and their anaesthetists will have enormous experience in managing the patients having the operations that they do.

Peoples' experiences of sedation for endoscopies/orthopaedic surgery/ whatever-other-random-surgery is quite likely to be not relevant for someone having tear duct surgery (the drugs will often be different, the 'surgical' stimulus will be different, the risks of any unplanned movements during a procedure will be different, etc etc etc). For some patients having sedation and avoiding a GA is best, but for others GA may well be safer than having deep sedation (and for a lot of customers it won't make much difference either way). A large chunk of the ophthalmology population of customers are barely well enough for haircuts let alone surgery and yet it's still very rare for anything disastrous to happen in theatre under GA or sedation!

I've had surgery for six eye operations. It's absolutely fine.

I’ve had cataract surgery in both eyes not under sedation but just using pain killing eye drops. It was less hassle than having a tooth filled. Very nervous for the first one but didn’t bat an eyelid the second time😎

I had conscious sedation for an endoscopic microdiscectomy in July and it was fine. The surgery took 2.5 hours but I can only remember a couple of moments during the entire procedure. I was completely alert within a couple of minutes of the surgery ending, and was able to wriggle off the operating bed to a trolley. The only adverse effect I can remember was being absolutely freezing in the recovery area and having to have one of the heated air blankets over me for about half an hour. I was back on the ward less than an hour after the end of the surgery, and was able to get up to use the toilet without help as soon as they wheeled me back in. They had lunch waiting for me, and I was discharged and home within two hours of leaving the operation theatre.