More like ‘You can’t let the surgical staff know you just woke up in surgery because you’ve been given a hefty dose of muscle relaxants and can no longer move or scream.’
I had a colonoscopy about five years ago … not only is the idea of having one of these procedures embarrassing (I know it’s important) but having to wake up like you just respawned into a game in a random location without knowing what the hell just happened is completely weird. You might as well have died for an hour or two and came back to life in a hospital bed.
And it’s not just an easy wake up either … your brain reboots itself and it takes about half an hour for all systems to come back online and in the meantime, it feels like some kind of weird drug that is preventing you from properly functioning or even thinking while your brain reoganizes itself and brings everything back up to normal.
It’s terrible … which is why I started eating properly, more fiber, less sugar, get my weight down and eat better … because I never want to go through that again unless I really, really have to.
Just thought I would add that there is nothing to be embarrassed about having a probe going where you typically wouldn’t want one. The doctors should have a very mechanical view of the human body and they shouldn’t care about anatomy. I am a huge proponent of getting a colonoscopy when needed. They can save your life. Most of all, you need them at regular intervals. Thankfully, they should be a few years apart.
I actually woke up during my last colonoscopy, to the weird feeling getting poked at from inside my body. (Get your giggles out of the way, kids.) My recovery time from anesthesia is super-quick usually, and will mention that for my next colonoscopy. I’ll be on my feet in about 10mins from when I open my eyes. The experience is always different from person to person. (I also was a serious drunk for a number of years, so operating at 25% was kinda normal, I suppose.)
My wife had a procedure under general - one where they had her legs pulled away back after she was out. She woke up during it to the point where she could hear them talking, but she couldn’t say anything. She told the doctor at the follow-up that she heard them talking and he said lots of people think that, but it’s just hallucinations from the drugs. She said, “One of the things you talked about was your kid’s soccer game,” and he got an “Oh shit” expression and moved the conversation to something else.
Why did he do that, you might ask? Because another thing they did was make fun of my wife in the position she was in. Extremely unprofessional, and she could have made a stink about it, but she just indirectly let him know she heard it.
I feel like we do a crappy job sometimes of telling patients what to expect or differences in things like sedation vs general anesthesia. Sedation is just ‘makes you sleepy’ but you can wake from that sleep.
General anesthesia you’re out, and you stay out until the doc pushes the drugs to wake you up.
I think the vast majority of stories about waking up in the middle of surgery involve the kinds of surgery where that’s semi-expected. Like, we’re typically not going to give general anesthesia for something like a toenail ablation or other more minor stuff. People wake up during those - usually we have a drape over them, so thay can’t see the the actual surgical site, but they often need to be oriented - “Hey Mr. Jones, you’re at the hospital for your toe surgery remember? You’ve been asleep for about 15 mins - we’ve got a couple left to go, then we’ll get some dressings on and you’ll be good to go!” …completely normal. They won’t actually feel what we’re doing because of a nerve block or local anesthetic.
But, ^that after a few rounds of telephone game becomes some horror story about waking up in the middle of a big open abdominal surgery, feeling all the cuts but not being able to speak or move. Can that shit actually happen? Probably, idk… our physiology is super finicky and there’s always the chance you’re the next one-in-a-billion unlucky bastard with a previously unheard of weird response to one of the meds they use for general, but I suspect most of these tales are, again, telephone-game type deviations from something completely different, or just pure bullshit from square one.
But, ^that after a few rounds of telephone game becomes some horror story about waking up in the middle of a big open abdominal surgery, feeling all the cuts but not being able to speak or move. Can that shit actually happen? Probably, idk…
It can happen. When giving general anaesthetic there are three components. An anaesthetic to puts you out and makes you forget whats going on, pain relief and a muscle relaxants so that you go limp and don’t try to fight the ventilator when they take over your breathing. If you are resistant to the anaesthetic or not enough was given then you can wake up while still under the effects of the muscle relaxants unable to do anything to let anyone know. Scary stuff if you ask me.
The thing is there are a lot of signs that start popping up when the anesthesia isn’t doing its job, due to tolerance or not having enough pushed. Your body starts to respond to the surgery way before your brain does, and we’ll start seeing muscle twitches or their vitals start to go nuts.
Not terribly uncommon for a surgeon, well into the operation to poke or cut something and the leg or whatever we’re cutting on recoils a bit. Surgeon gets annoyed and snaps at the anesthesiologist “Hey he’s getting a little light - we still got at least 40 minutes!” and the anesthesiologist will push a little more sauce and the signs stop pretty quick.
Point being, by the time you’d be aware of anything, your body will have been reacting to it increasingly dramatically.
Surgery aside - let’s say you’re sleeping normally and someone tickles your nose with a feather or something. Not enough stimulation to wake you up, but your nose might twitch or flare in response; with enough irritation you might even reach up to scratch your nose or move your head all without ever waking up - though by that point your very close to regaining consciousness.
Again, our physiology is weird, and meds do weird things to it, and I’m just a tech so I don’t know the nitty-gritty details, so I’m definitely not in a position to say it’s impossible. But those kinds of claims definitely fire off the bullshit detector enough that I’d be hesitant to take them at face value without a breakdown of how the patient’s physiology is different from everyone else’s or how the anesthesiologist managed to come up with a cocktail of whatever he pushed to allow for mental perception of being sliced open without any change to things like vital signs.
I think I have to clarify something. The whole thing was not as bad as it sounds. I had a local anesthesia in my arm (which was operated) and was sedated with propofol (i think). My focus wasn’t as much on waking up, which i guess from the comments can just happen. It was more on my inability to speak up if something is wrong. Maybe they even noticed, and thought its alright. There was no pain, just an unsettling feeling.
I can’t stress enough that I’m a tech, the rock bottom of the OR foodchain, so my understanding is limited …and even if I was claiming to be some kind of doctor, I’m still just a random internet stranger, so some healthy skepticism is encouraged regardless. BUT I’ve spent most of the past decade working in rooms full of brilliant people, so I’ve picked a few things up during that time, so: some of what you’re describing is normal, like waking up during sedation, but some of it has me scratching my head. Like, there shouldn’t (dangerous word, I know) be a situation where you’re sedated and paralyzed, cuz that’s a recipe for the nightmare fuel this thread is talking about. If you wake up from sedation, you might feel groggy and like heavy limbs or not just lack the desire to move like when your alarm is going off in the morning and you’re just lying there in a state of apathy for a minute mourning the loss of your sleep… but… if you make a conscious effort to move or speak, you should (*) be able to.
And again, not saying none of that ever happened; it’d just be super abnormal to the extent of suspecting some kind of literal physiologic anomaly (which is possible!) or some kind of borderline criminal incompetence (or actual malice) on the part of your anesthesiologist.
I never said I was paralyzed. I didn’t speak because the situation was too awkward for me to say something. Nobody from the medical staff made a mistake.
Oh! Well fuck, I way misinterpreted what you were saying then.
No problem, I wasn’t very clear in what I was saying. I probably would have thought that too.
I agree they’re warning signs that you are awake and a good anaesthetist should pick up on it but, I am also saying that it’s possible, rare, but possible given the nature of GA to not have enough anaesthetic onboard while having a decent does of muscle relaxant. So you can look like you’re out of it from the end of the bed but still be aware. A good anaesthetist should honestly be paying attention to the patients physiology and noticing the blood pressure and heart rate spiking before this happens though. Maybe evening using something like a BIS to help confirm anaesthesia.
I woke up during my wisdom teeth removal.
I tried to let them know
I have no idea if I was successful, because for all I know I was making crazy sounds while unconscious.You guys were asleep during that? I had 6 wisdom teeth (that’s right, 2 extra teeth in my jaw, all the doctors gathered to see) removed while awake with local anesthesia.
I also had local anesthesia when my wisdom teeth were removed. I had 4 of them, like most people. Still was a horrorshow for me, because I didn’t manage to stop the bleeding after the removal. Ended up in the ER because I swallowed too much blood. Was my own fault, and I hope I learned from it to follow medical instructions more.
Oh yeah, the first several hours were a living nightmare. I could not stop the bleeding either and left my bathroom looking like a murderer scene. Ttankfully I managed to avoid going to the ER.
Yeah, they offered it as an option to me. Some kind of IV thing they turned on and knocked me TF out.
I’m Canadian so it’s not like that option cost more or anything (thankfully wisdom teeth removal is considered a necessary medical procedure, rather than a dental procedure).
