Anesthesia Awareness.?

Question

Anesthesia Awareness is very unheard of but common under most Anesthesia..
It's when you are asleep in body, but not in head, can't move, breathe for yourself in most cases and have to deal with it.
My question is...
Can you still get Anesthesia Awareness if you are under General Anestesia?

Answer 1

Anesthesia awareness is NOT common with general anesthesia. It happens, but rarely.

If you have SEDATION, as opposed to general anesthesia, you may hear what's going on, and we expect that. You may remember things, you may not. If you have a SPINAL or EPIDURAL, you'll be awake. We usually sedate people, and, again, they may or may not remember stuff.

In order for you to have intraoperative awareness, you have to be paralyzed, and have either low levels of anesthetics or a very high tolerance for it. We don't paralyze everybody, and you'll move before you'll remember anything. That's not uncommon.

You're most likely to have awareness during an emergency C-section (the baby limits how much drug we can give before delivery), open heart surgery, and trauma surgery (where too much anesthesia might just kill you). I always talk to my C-section general anesthesia patients in case they are aware. Never had one yet who was, though.

There's a movie coming out called "Awake" or something like that, that's going to make anesthesiologists' lives a living hell. Thanks, Hollywood.

Answer 2

Under general anesthesia, a patient is given medications intended to cause unconsciousness and relieve pain. If the medication to render the patient unconscious fails, awareness occurs. In other words, the patient wakes up, becomes aware of certain events occurring during the surgery, and may recall some or all of the events. Further, if the medication to relieve pain fails or is inadequate, the patient may feel pain while awake. Finally, cases involving general anesthesia often require the patient to be given medication intended to prevent movement. In very rare instances, the sleep and pain medications fail while the paralytic agent does not, making it virtually impossible for the patient to communicate this dire situation to the anesthesia providers.

-Symbiosisonlinepublishing

Answer 3

By definition, anesthesia awareness occurs under general anesthesia, or rather, inadequate general anesthesia.

Furthermore, it is not very common at all. Part of the problem is caused by careless administration of anesthesia. Another part of the problem is caused by patients who routinely take large amounts of drugs or are addicted to narcotics and do not tell their anesthesiologist about it.

Answer 4

No..thank god. In the past year I had reconstructive foot surgery on both feet (2 different surgerys) and both times I was under general and local anesthesia. Both times I was hoping I wouldn't wake up!

Answer 5

Yes:
http://depts.washington.edu/awaredb/

That site will tell you more about it. Been there, done that!