Have you ever been under general anesthesia? What was it like? Did anything strange happen?
As a compliment to the thread about near death experiences I’d really like hearing people’s experiences of losing consciousness under general anesthesia and what’s it like coming back.
Also interested of things anesthetists may have noticed about this during their career.
I was under general anesthesia three times in my childhood due to arriving into this world only partially assembled.
The first time I was sedated with ether (which I believe is not in use anymore) and only remember a nurse forcing the mask over my face before waking up to the sound of my father snoring next to me. I was violently ill for the next several days, but from what I hear I got off light compared to others.
For the next two I was given some kind of euphoric stimulant (via suppository, go figure) to calm me, but from what I’ve been told it instead made me hallucinate that I was driving a race car and did so all the way to the operating theatre much to everyone’s amusement. I’m happy that I remember none of this and that it was before smart phones or I’d probably be on YouTube forever. 😅
With general anesthesia nothing really, I remember them pushing the meds and a strange sensation as they did so, then the next thing I know I’m being wheeled back to recovery. All times I was still a kid, so may not be the experience an adult has.
Under twilight sedation I never go completely under and usually remember the whole thing, the last time it happened they said I had an unusually high tolerance to the medication. It was enough to keep me calm, but I was very much alert and so I just asked the surgeon to narrate what he was doing because it was honestly fascinating. All those experiences were for eye surgeries as an adult.
Nothing. You breathe twice, then blackout. You wake up in a bedroom, feels like an unpleasant and quite huge hangover. Then, as the anesthesia fades away, you might feel the pain coming progressively (depending on what you have).
While I was being administered, I could feel my eyesight drift upwards and I got clear memory of everything, including asking the doctor if they weren’t going to ask me to do a countdown or to talk about a certain topic like my favorite show as I drift. I can recreate the entire conversation up to the moment I knew I was about to lose conscience and just let my head lean a bit for comfort.
However, once I woke up again, I had a full conversation with my wife and I remember exactly 50% of it. I did not slur words nor say anything weird. I moved myself from the stretcher to the bed on my own apparently, but no memory. I was basically fully in control of my own agency… except for the fact I was extremely prone to falling asleep on the spot, and my brain was basically refusing to retain most of it. I even had to pee to a container and apparently managed to do it without causing a mess despite falling asleep on it, and then waking up to hand over the container. Anything you asked, I could easily reply, and I was clearly listening to requests, but if you ask me to tell what was spoken and in what order, I’ll fail you even tho I can recognize the event.
One thing I do not remember is the two nurses in the post-op room calling my name to check if I was good or any of the stretcher movement stuff. They did ask me what to call out beforehand, and said there was a procedure for checking on you before sending you to back to the overnight patient room, but that was the last I’ve seen them. Probably.
So, basically, that’s it. Large blackout, then groggy with memory loss. Then normal.
It’s like you close your eyes, and then 5 seconds later you open them and hours have passed. Nothing too weird happened, although I was a kid and so excited I remember them having to tell me to calm down and go to “sleep”.
It’s like you close your eyes, and then 5 seconds later you open them and hours have passed.
That’s what it was like for me. However when I “woke up”, my wife was in the room next to me and I was already sitting upright on the bed, dressed and shoes on. Apparently I had been awake for about a half hour and we both had a conversation with the doctor about how things went. I remembered none of it.
Like a snap of the fingers. Out and back. I remember waking up groggy and apparently I had thrown up on myself right before I woke up which is weird because I find throwing up traumatizing but I don’t recall doing it…
I had general anesthesia, some kind of pretty strong opioid. "10... 9... 8...", then the room felt like it was spinning very briefly before everything went black. Only thing I remember about coming out of it was a sore throat due to intubation.
Yes, just last month. It was my first time. It wasn’t a long procedure, took like 40 minutes ish. Anyway, I didn’t feel anything. I just remember them telling me that they’re gonna try to put me to sleep and that I should try to relax. Next I knew, I was waking up in recovery. I didn’t even have any idea that I was in recovery already until I noticed that the surgical room was different.
It felt just like sleep, I didn’t even have any dizziness afterwards. When done properly, that’s how it should be.
Whatever they did to string me out for a tumour removal didn’t work. I remember screaming a lot, hearing, “oh shit, put her under,” then waking up to my well-meaning but idiot bf who had brought me a coffee.
As my steezy took pains to point out, general anesthesia is not sedation. General means you cannot breathe on your own. Sedation (like with propofol) means you can still breathe, but you have no working memory of what happens.
I’ve had sedation administered a few times in the past few years, two colonoscopies and a bone spur shave on my big toe.
Colonoscopies are fairly quick, maybe 30-45 minutes for the full procedure. There was a burn in my vein in as the injection was administered via IV, followed shortly by a dizziness that wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in recovery. The dizziness lasted for about 7-10 minutes. Felt about 90% good for the rest of the day, 100% the next.
For the bone spur, I was out for about 2 hours. Experience was similar, except it took quite a bit longer for the propofol dizziness to wear off, maybe 4-5 hours. Not that I was going to drive anywhere with a recently operated toe, but there’s no way I would have tried. After a good night’s sleep, I felt 100% next day.
I remember them wheeling my bed from the staging room to go to the operating room, then waking up in recovery. No memory of ever being in the O.R. at all.
Same here. I was in Boston and needed an emergency ram-a-stick-down-your-throatoscopy to dislodge a lump of meat after I had an allergic reaction (fuck you Applebees). Full anesthetic but I managed to count down to 0 so the anaesthetist lost the bet and I didn’t give him a OnePlus One invite code.
I actually just had strabismus surgery this past Thursday. I was definitely nervous before going into the operating room, but I’ve been under before for a tonsillectomy. As I was wheeled on my gurney into the OR, they gave me a “half dose” of something to calm me down, but I didn’t really feel much.
Getting in, it was all about the prepping going on around me. Doctors, nurses, residents, etc. all doing their thing. I had these compression-type wraps put on my legs that would squeeze every so often to prevent blood clotting. IV was on the top of my left arm (so much tape and adhesive I now have a few bald spots from arm hair being ripped - I’m a guy if that helps). I had white circles placed on the front of my chest and top of my shoulders which I believe tracked my pulse and such (also took hair when removed).
Everyone was nice, but there was definitely an efficiency and routine to the whole setup. My type of surgery is done regularly in that part of the hospital, so it’s nothing new for them.
When it came time to go under, I was given the “other half” of the sedating drug (not sure on the name) and an air mask was held over my face. I was told to keep breathing in deeply. I did it for like 2-3 minutes before a doctor told the guy holding my mask to “increase it, you’re a bit low”. Maybe that was nitrous? As they were doing that, my arms were being strapped down and I joked if I needed a safe word since this is my first time using straps. They said sure, pick one. Before I could say “pineapples” I was waking up in the post-op area.
Everything was very bright and I was definitely groggy, so I just closed my eyes and let myself come back to reality. The right eye was covered in bandages and a head wrap with sutures just dangling from the inside corner of my eye - that was super weird and caught on the bandage frequently. Eventually I could use my left eye without squinting too much. I was given ice chips and tissues to clear my mouth out from the gunk buildup. Movement was pretty limited with the IV still there and not being able to move my eyes much.
It took about 2 hours before my mom was let in (she was the +1), then another 30 minutes or so for the surgeon to come in to wash my right eye of blood and adjust the sutures. That was a 3x process which wasn’t painful, but really uncomfortable. I’d look at a light, they’d measure the eye movement between left and right, then lay me back and tighten the suture. Rinse and repeat until the doc was confident. Another 1.5 hours or so and I was able to leave.
Not sure if it’s normal but I’d say I was coherent and ready to wear normal clothes by the 1.5 hour mark after surgery. By the end, I could move, change clothes, talk, everything, but hospital policy was to wheel me out. If you want to know about recovery after, I’d be happy to share - I’m on day 4 now.
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