General Anaesthetic - what should I know?

[Sunshineandcarrots]

Hi. I hope you can help.
I have to go under a general anaesthetic for an operation two weeks time.
I'm a generally anxious person and can invent all sorts of nonsense in my head. e.g. I've read people can get dementia from anaesthetics.

Can anyone tell me anything about them? I've never had one. I thought I had but it turns out it was a sedation.

I'm frankly terrifying myself with google.

I'd love to know also how long after will I wake up and how long to wait for someone to tell me how the operation went. Thank you for any help.

Hi OP, I've had 5 GA's and no problems at all with any of them. I've had some given IV and others via a mask. Both make you feel floaty and then you're out. I woke up in recovery with the nurses doing my vital signs etc and they gave me an update if everything was ok.

You will be fine! I work in theatres in anaesthetics and recovery. You'll go down to the anaesthetic room, lay down on the trolley. They'll put monitoring on you (3 ecg dots, a BP cuff and a pulse oximeter peg on your finger). Therell be the anaesthetist, an anaesthetic nurse/odp and maybe a health care assistant in the room. They will do some more checks of your wristband and what procedure you're having, and then the anaesthetist will put a cannula in your hand.

Then they'll give you meds like a pain relief and an anti sickness, then yolk have the anaesthetic which is usually a white syringe. You'll be given a mask to breath oxygen through and then drift off to sleep.

When you wake up you'll be in the recovery room, you can ask if it went ok but normally recovery staff wont have been in theatre with you, but will have a handover given to them so should be able to tell you it went ok. The surgeon will come and see you possibly in recovery or back on the ward to explain in more detail how everything went.

Specifically re. your concerns about dementia....

There is no evidence that general anaesthesia causes dementia. There are lab studies in animal brains that show that some structural changes may occur, but there is, as yet, no evidence that this actually translates into causing dementia.

If someone has already has dementia (either diagnosed or undiagnosed) it’s possible that surgery may alter the trajectory of that condition (ie there may be a more rapid decline than there would have been without surgery). Whether this is a result of the anaesthetic specifically or the whole package of the surgery (which involves a physiological stress response) is not clear.

Post-op cognitive decline is a condition where there may be more or less subtle memory changes in the weeks-months post op. It is not terribly well understood and is one of the reasons we may encourage people to have spinal/epidural/other local anaesthetic techniques where possible if we think they’re particularly at risk of this sort of thing (mainly older customers who already have memory problems/lots of medical problems).

The risk of an anaesthetic & operation has to be balanced against the risk of not treating whatever the underlying problem is. It should be generally reassuring though that worldwide millions of people of all ages have GAs each year with absolutely no problems at all.

Just to add, when I woke up from my last one, I felt like I'd had the best nap of my life. So refreshing after 2 full years of sleepless nights. 😉

Good luck with your operation.

Just like potato I felt so rested. Had had a gruesome operation and was totally unaware. I had a terrible migraine when I went into the OR too and was sick and miserable. I came around feeling a million dollars. Needless to say I am now a big fan!

I have had a few and while I'm not rushing to the operating theater, I kind of enjoy the weirdness of just shutting your eyes and then opening them and it's several hours later. Just concentrate on any advice they've given you about how best to prepare for the op and don't let your mind trick you into worries.

The doctor who performed the OP was there when I woke up as was the anaesthetist in the recovery room. They were all so lovely, we talked recipes as one of them was off home to cook dinner. It felt as it was: not actually that big a deal. But with the added bonus that I was all repaired and felt like I'd had a super sleep.

I have had 2 and no long term effects at all

I would mention 2 things in addition to previous:

Ask if you will be having a pre-med. one GA I did, the other I didn't
They tend to make you feel a bit drunk/high so it's good to know that beforehand

You may feel nauseous or be sick afterwards. Not always but Its fairly common. I was calmer when I threw up after because I knew it was likely

I also felt very rested after - best sleep ever!

Hope all goes well

I've had 4 and agree with the others, best sleep I've ever had.

You may be constipated in the days afterwards (the gut has been slowed down). Wish they had warned me about this.