Waking up during surgery
mosaicscience.com
Waking up during surgery
1–10 of 44 posts
Re: Waking up during surgery
#2I was informed I would be waken up during brain tumour surgery. They did wake me up to test motor skills (and vision I think) but thankfully I have no recollection of the event (which they also told me would be most likely).
I can't fathom being awake during surgery. Having sleep paralysis once or twice in my calm bedroom was traumatizing enough.
Re: Waking up during surgery
#3I recently had a foot injury. In the ER they put me under and the (fantastic) surgeon "twisted" the foot back into place.
I don't remember anything, however other people said I was moaning in pain while under anesthesia. Pretty weird.
Re: Waking up during surgery
#4I recently had a foot injury. In the ER they put me under and the (fantastic) surgeon "twisted" the foot back into place. I don't remember anything, however other people said I was moaning in pain while under anesthesia. Pretty weird.
Ever since I’ve been a little kid this one thing has stuck with me; if you can’t remember it, is it like it never happened? I used to wonder that about nightmares, but I tended to go with the view that a version of you did suffer, and on some level the impact is there. Like a person with anteretrograde amnesia who can’t remember learning to work a specific maze, but still realizes the gains of the previous attempts.
I still don’t know if it’s even a realistic question, but I still wonder.
Re: Waking up during surgery
#5I've woken up during surgery (for appendix removal). It was uncomfortable but not especially painful. I didn't feel panicky or disoriented, but then I've always been OK with medical situations. The anaesthetist looked pretty horrified though.
Re: Waking up during surgery
#6Wouldn't your heart rate increase to alarming levels?
If you were awake & in pain during surgery, you would (of course) freak out. Even if you were paralyzed, your heart rate would increase and the doctors would know. This is what a doctor once told me when I asked.
I'm not sure how to contrast that with what the article says.
Re: Waking up during surgery
#7I recently had a foot injury. In the ER they put me under and the (fantastic) surgeon "twisted" the foot back into place. I don't remember anything, however other people said I was moaning in pain while under anesthesia. Pretty weird.
Ever since I’ve been a little kid this one thing has stuck with me; if you can’t remember it, is it like it never happened? I used to wonder that about nightmares, but I tended to go with the view that a version of you did suffer, and on some level the impact is there. Like a person with anteretrograde amnesia who can’t remember learning to work a specific maze, but still realizes the gains of the previous attempts.…
It's realistic, I vaguely remember one story from someone who dislocated his shoulder in his teens and had to have a doctor pop it back into place. Apparently they didn't have regular pain killers, so they gave him something that induced amnesia and just had clinic staff hold him down. He doesn't remember any of it at all.
Granted this happened ~50 years ago so I don't know how embellished the story became over the years, or how pain science changed since then.
Re: Waking up during surgery
#8I recently had a foot injury. In the ER they put me under and the (fantastic) surgeon "twisted" the foot back into place. I don't remember anything, however other people said I was moaning in pain while under anesthesia. Pretty weird.
Apparently patients do experience pain under certain anaesthesics, but that they do not remember upon awaking. Pretty disturbing to me.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/surgical-...
Re: Waking up during surgery
#9I recently had a foot injury. In the ER they put me under and the (fantastic) surgeon "twisted" the foot back into place. I don't remember anything, however other people said I was moaning in pain while under anesthesia. Pretty weird.
Ever since I’ve been a little kid this one thing has stuck with me; if you can’t remember it, is it like it never happened? I used to wonder that about nightmares, but I tended to go with the view that a version of you did suffer, and on some level the impact is there. Like a person with anteretrograde amnesia who can’t remember learning to work a specific maze, but still realizes the gains of the previous attempts.…
There’s a lot of study going on about that very issue right now. A lot of surgery is done with the patient conscious or semi-conscious, but on an amnesiac medication that’s supposed to suppress memories. It’s not clear whether memories retained at a deeper sub-conscious level can trigger PTSD.
Re: Waking up during surgery
#10I've woken up during surgery (for appendix removal). It was uncomfortable but not especially painful. I didn't feel panicky or disoriented, but then I've always been OK with medical situations. The anaesthetist looked pretty horrified though.
I’ve also woken up during surgery to remove a hematoma. I was so high off the anesthesia that it was less fear/pain and more of a disassociation/dreamlike state. I was comprehending what was going on around me but didn’t have full control over my faculties.
I expect that kind of thing happens pretty regularly because once the anesthesiologist realized it they re-dosed me pretty quickly and I was back out again. They didn’t seem alarmed at all. The whole situation, while it felt like a decent amount of time, probably lasted less than 30 seconds and only felt more stretched because of the drugs.
Tangentially I do remember the doctors and nurses having some sort of conversation that seemed ridiculously mismatched to the current situation but I am guessing more mundane talk happens during people’s surgeries than a normal person would expect.