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Waking Up During Surgery (2019)

mosaicscience.com

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Re: Waking Up During Surgery (2019)

#51

Post by throwanem »

andrewl wrote: post #48
throwanem wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you? It would probably be by far the worst agony you'd ever experienced, and given the circumstances you might also not be able to be certain you had actually experienced it. Beyond that, you'd likely face strong dissuasion if you did try to talk to anyone about it, even a doctor or nurse involved in your care, assuming the article is accurate in saying most don't really believe it can happen. It might be hard…

It's not uncommon to wake people up during brain surgery, or do the surgery without fully anesthetizing the patient at all. They would anesthetize the skull area they cut through. And the brain tissue itself doesn't register pain when cut. They do it so the surgeons can interact with the patient to guide them in what areas they have to stay away from when removing a tumor or doing other work. Here's more: https://www…

Sure, I'm aware, and I don't know of any reports of emotional harm as a result of that. I think it'd probably be the combination of pain, helplessness, surprise, and recollection that'd be what causes the trauma in cases where people regain consciousness unintentionally. In the kind of surgery you describe, at most two of those seem likely ever to be present, and because the awareness is intentional I expect there'd be more and/or different pharmacological support to help insulate the patient from the full reality of the situation. So I don't think awake brain surgery is likely all that usefully comparable to the accidental awareness we're discussing here.

Re: Waking Up During Surgery (2019)

#52

Post by andrewl »

throwanem wrote: post #51
andrewl wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not uncommon to wake people up during brain surgery, or do the surgery without fully anesthetizing the patient at all. They would anesthetize the skull area they cut through. And the brain tissue itself doesn't register pain when cut. They do it so the surgeons can interact with the patient to guide them in what areas they have to stay away from when removing a tumor or doing other work. Here's more: https://www…

Sure, I'm aware, and I don't know of any reports of emotional harm as a result of that. I think it'd probably be the combination of pain, helplessness, surprise, and recollection that'd be what causes the trauma in cases where people regain consciousness unintentionally . In the kind of surgery you describe, at most two of those seem likely ever to be present, and because the awareness is intentional I expect there'd…

I thought you were referring to Tapland's report "I remember the doctors asking me after partial removal of a brain tumour if I remembered them waking me up during the surgery" when you said it "would probably be by far the worst agony you'd ever experienced."

Accidental awareness during surgery has always sounded massively traumatic to me. Even thinking about it makes me intensely uncomfortable.

Re: Waking Up During Surgery (2019)

#53

Post by flave »

wittyreference wrote: post #21
flave wrote: post #2

Okay this is an interesting article and an interesting subject. But, it looks a lot like fear-mongering. I feel strongly about this because I had two procedures done under local for fear of exactly this situation (coming up but being sedated) and both experiences where tough . > Founded in 2007, it has now collected more than 340 reports So 24 self-reported cases a year in all of N America. There are 48 million in pa…

They went on to describe the forearm experiment which showed a much higher rate of awareness. I don’t see why you’ve chosen to omit that. You seem to casually discard the idea that awareness without memory is irrelevant, but when I’ve informed patients of amnestics they’ve been horrified - maybe needlessly so, but I’m not so arrogant as to think “silly patient, your horror is wrong and therefore irrelevant.” Many peo…

Okay, so how is this person in massive amounts of pain without having the physiological response of a raised heart rate and raised blood pressure?

Re: Waking Up During Surgery (2019)

#54

Post by flave »

sliq wrote: post #29
flave wrote: post #2

Okay this is an interesting article and an interesting subject. But, it looks a lot like fear-mongering. I feel strongly about this because I had two procedures done under local for fear of exactly this situation (coming up but being sedated) and both experiences where tough . > Founded in 2007, it has now collected more than 340 reports So 24 self-reported cases a year in all of N America. There are 48 million in pa…

Your personal experience has absolutely zero impact on the value of this article. The "it doesn't exist because i never experienced it" mindset is a dangerous one.

I'm making the point that I, and many other people, have experienced the downside of the baseless fear-mongering around 'waking up' during surgery.

Re: Waking Up During Surgery (2019)

#55

Post by flave »

BurningFrog wrote: post #41
batch12 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had several surgeries with everything from a light to general anesthetic. I warn the nurses and doctor beforehand that I have a history of waking and remember previous operations. Most do not believe me. I remember the sound of my wisdom teeth being cracked open and opening my eyes while they were being cut out. I remember scaring the shit out of a nurse and doctor when I woke and started talking mid-procedure…

Do you have red hair? I ask because they're known to need more anesthesia.

lol so do I and it's one of the reasons why I thought I was more likely to 'wake up'

Re: Waking Up During Surgery (2019)

#56

Post by refurb »

ycombinete wrote: post #3
flave wrote: post #2

Okay this is an interesting article and an interesting subject. But, it looks a lot like fear-mongering. I feel strongly about this because I had two procedures done under local for fear of exactly this situation (coming up but being sedated) and both experiences where tough . > Founded in 2007, it has now collected more than 340 reports So 24 self-reported cases a year in all of N America. There are 48 million in pa…

That speculation at the end is truly bizzare. I’m sure that, if I suffered such an experience, the first thing I’d do upon waking would be to talk about it!

Most surgeons, at least males ones, will have another nurse present during recovery as some pretty weird memories can form.

I remember reading about a case where an older female patient wouldn’t talk to the surgeon after. Finally she admitted she was upset as “the surgeon has put his penis in her hand”.

Luckily he had a nurse present the entire time and what he had done is place two fingers in her palm and told her to squeeze.

Yet this patient was 100% convinced he had been inappropriate with her.

Re: Waking Up During Surgery (2019)

#57

Post by istorical »

cj wrote: post #6

I'm inclined to chalk this up to false memories. Especially if someone is going in with nervousness or awareness that "waking up without being able to alert the surgeon" is a specific point of anxiety of the patient. But, who knows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory

It's a known phenomenon not a mythological creature like bigfoot. Dentists for example often have to re-administer anesthesia mid-procedure when a patient wakes up mid-wisdom tooth extraction for example.

Re: Waking Up During Surgery (2019)

#58

Post by rz2k »

tapland wrote: post #9
ycombinete wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That speculation at the end is truly bizzare. I’m sure that, if I suffered such an experience, the first thing I’d do upon waking would be to talk about it!

I remember the doctors asking me after partial removal of a brain tumour if I remembered them waking me up during the surgery. I wish I did, but I remember absolutely nothing. This was about 15 years ago, and I don't remember if they said they would wake me up prior to the surgery. Maybe to my parents.

Was that done to actively map your brain so that they could be especially careful around areas related to functions like speech?

Re: Waking Up During Surgery (2019)

#59

Post by istorical »

batch12 wrote: post #35
flave wrote: post #2

Okay this is an interesting article and an interesting subject. But, it looks a lot like fear-mongering. I feel strongly about this because I had two procedures done under local for fear of exactly this situation (coming up but being sedated) and both experiences where tough . > Founded in 2007, it has now collected more than 340 reports So 24 self-reported cases a year in all of N America. There are 48 million in pa…

I have had several surgeries with everything from a light to general anesthetic. I warn the nurses and doctor beforehand that I have a history of waking and remember previous operations. Most do not believe me. I remember the sound of my wisdom teeth being cracked open and opening my eyes while they were being cut out. I remember scaring the shit out of a nurse and doctor when I woke and started talking mid-procedure…

I also had this happen. Literally almost the exact same, don't remember whether I opened my eyes or not but I remember hearing crunching sounds coming from my mouth and realizing it was them drilling or hammering or doing something destructive to my wisdom teeth. But zero pain. Just a wtf that is weird af feeling. But then I passed back out (not sure if they did something to make me fall back asleep or if it occurred of its own accord).

Re: Waking Up During Surgery (2019)

#60

Post by jeffreyrogers »

I woke up while having my wisdom teeth taken out (doubt it was general anesthesia, but it was something more than local anesthesia). It was incredibly painful. Fortunately they noticed pretty quickly and did something and I was out again pretty quick.
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