I’ve heard that if someone undergoes surgery and needs to be put under with general anesthesia, that the doctor will put a tube down your lungs to make sure you get enough oxygen.
So does this mean a person under general anesthesia is incapable of breathing on their own, or is it done as a safety measure?
Final question:
How do doctors know when to take the tube out before a patient wakes up? I’ve never been put under before, but one of my fear has always been to wake up with a metal tube down my throat and get that Matrix Neo experience when he first wakes up in the pod and pulls a giant tube from his throat.
Does this ever happen? How is it prevented?
In: 197
Anesthesia has three components:
-to make sure you are unconscious
-to make sure you are unable to feel pain
-to make sure you cannot move
Each of these components require a different medication.
To make sure you cannot move, they will give you a medication that prevents muscle contractions.
That means none of your muscles can move, including your lung muscles, and so you cannot breathe on your own. That’s why they put a tube attached to a breathing machine down your throat.
When surgery is over, the anti-muscle contraction medication is the first to wear-off / be reversed.
When the anesthesiologist sees that you are starting to breathe on your own, they turn off the breathing machine then take out the tube. After that they turn off the gas / medication that makes you unconscious and you wake up.
Edit: small correction it seems they turn off everything at the same time but usually would have removed the tube before you regain full consciousness
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