If the anesthesia wares off and in the middle of an operation the patient wakes up, how fatal could this be?

Question

would the patient feel the pain? would the patient die? could you give the patient another dose of anesthesia?

Answer 1

Giving anesthesia is not a question of popping something into the patient and that's it. It is the constant administration of medications while monitoring patients.

Awareness under anesthesia DOES happen, but it is uncommon and not fatal. It is most likely to happen during cardiac surgery, emergency surgery (where too much anesthesia will kill the patient) and during emergency C-sections under general (too much anesthesia will depress the infant, and the surgeons might start before the patient is fully anesthetized to save the baby)

Many times, we need to chemically paralyze patients in order for the surgeon to be able to do what he/she needs to do. If the anesthesia is light (which may be necessary if there is sudden blood loss, or accidental if the gas runs out of the vaporizer), a patient may experience awareness and be unable to move. In that case, heart rate and blood pressure will go way up, and the anesthesiologist should be alert enough to figure out what is going on.

Can we "give another dose"? Of course - we are giving doses intermittently for some medications and continuously for others throughout the surgery. Anesthesia is a balance - we have to give just enough medication to offset how much the surgeon is hurting the patient without overdosing them.

Now, spinals are a different story completely. That is a one-shot deal, and if the 2 hour surgery takes 5 hours, the spinal will wear off, and the anesthetic needs to be converted to a general. We can adjust how long a spinal will last by what we inject (which medication, how much of it and at what concentration and baricity), but once it's in, it's in and that's it.

One common misconception about awareness under anesthesia occurs when we give people sedation, and they think they are supposed to be under general. This is very common for old people and cataract surgery. You can tell them 500 times that they are going to be awake for the surgery, and they'll still complain that they didn't go to sleep. (So if someone says that were awake for during their anesthetic, you need to see if they were SUPPOSED to be asleep or not. We can do a lot under local and sedation.)

Anesthesiologists watch people very closely to avoid problems like you mention. Sometimes it does happen, but sometimes surgeons cause people to bleed to death too. We can't avoid every complication, no matter how vigilant we are. Awareness IS one of the risks of general anesthesia.

Answer 2

Depends on the operation. Usually the patient would need the anesthesia to stay alive or they would not be put on it during the op. Eg if operating on the lungs they would feel the pain and the body would respond-trying to cover the wound and going into a state of panic or shock, the exposed wound would be as fatal as if someone had just cut it open-which they have. Giving them another dose could solve the problem in the short term by stopping them struggling and letting the operators get on with the op but they could have contaminated or torn the wound open more in this panic situation.

Answer 3

That's pretty scary to wake up to and actually happens a lot, especially to patients who keep things from the Doctor. That is the price you pay for not telling the Doc you take a lot of pain killers (he he he, they'll never know!). You don't get the proper anesthetic doses, but they fix you up. There are a lot of stories of people who are awake and bear up to it and the doctor doesn't know until after the operation. Also, some kinds of surgery on brain tissue is done with the person conscious as the brain has no pain receptors in most areas, and I don't even want to think about that as I may be there one day soon.

Answer 4

my pa woke up during open heart surgery. he didnt die form it but it was extremely painful, he had nightmares about it all the time until he passed. you can get another dose of anesthesia. the patient definately wouldn't die from it unless he/she had the strength to get up which would make things very bad but its unlikely - the person would be very weak.

Answer 5

It's not fatal but extremely frightning.
I heard of a woman being operated while she was awake but the doctors didn't know and they operated on her.

Answer 6

theoretically if you woke up and saw what was happening, you would go into a state of shock and your heart rate would increase and if they were operating on open arteries it could case damage, but luckily anestheaseologists get it right MOST OF THE TIME

Answer 7

Anesthesia is well planned and administered. No such thing happens. More anesthesia can be given if surgery lasts longer than expected.

Answer 8

this happened to my dad! thank god he didn't feel anything. They must have given him more of the dose because he fell asleep again!