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
Most of the time the doctors try to give enough anaesthesia to make the patient unconscious but not stop breathing. The patient is intubated in order to keep the airways open and to help monitor the breathing but the patient is breathing on their own through the tube. But if too much drugs are given, either accidentally or when performing surgeries close to the diaphragm and lungs, the tube will be hooked up to pumps that can force air inn and out of the lungs. These machines are usually hooked up but not turned on unless needed. When the patient is waking up the first thing that returns is the breathing. When this is noticed the machines are turned off. Some machines are capable of detecting the breath and synchronise their operations with the lungs but for general anaesthesia this is not required as long as you have someone watching the entire time.
As for waking up with the tube installed this is quite normal. Of course it is easier to remove the tube before the patient wakes up but it is safer to do it after. The tube is there just to keep the airways open so when the patient is breathing on their own through the tube it can be left in place until the patient is able to keep their own airways open. And quite often the patient regains consciousness before the nurses notices that they are able to keep their airways open and they wake up with the tube in place. Obviously the patient is able to keep their airways open after regaining consciousness so the tube can normally be safely removed after this.
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