I have a majorly embarrassing fear of surgery. It is so irrational that I will put off procedures that I need. I’m afraid that when I’m under anesthesia that I could wake up, or I could have awareness/feel pain and not be able to communicate it to the surgical team. I’ve heard that they give you drugs so you don’t remember at all- my anxiety-ridden brain wonders if we are all suffering during the procedure and we just forget upon waking. I understand that quite a few folks will require surgery during their lifetime. I have had IV sedation during procedures, and despite having no problems, I am utterly terrified. Please tell me about how ridiculous I am being.
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An anaesthetic is a weird thing, I give them for a living (I’m an anaesthetic doctor) and have been doing this for 15 years.
It’s a scary thought to have no control about what is happening to you, so don’t beat yourself about having fears about the unknown.
Anaesthesia now is very safe, and to reassure you that you’re not awake and just don’t remember, we can monitor your brainwaves through the anaesthetic, and they are not the brainwaves of an awake person (it’s called BIS or entropy, if you want to read about it).
I won’t lie to you, there are cases of awareness under anaesthesia, but like someone else said, there are most common in very specific cases, eg, the critically unwell, as we have to be skimpy on the drugs we give, to ensure we don’t harm the patient (all our drugs can lower blood pressure, which is no issue in a normal person, but when you don’t have much blood pressure to start with, can cause issues).
To summarise an anaesthetic (as its pretty different to on tv, where the surgeon always seems to do it!). You have a dedicated anaesthesiologist, they have roughly $250k of monitoring equipment, called an anaesthetic machine. We monitor your heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen level, breathing, carbon dioxide level. And a few other things if we feel fancy. We monitor your brain waves for level of consciousness, and see exactly how much anaesthetic you’re getting (if we’re using the anaesthetic gas once you’re asleep).
The department I work in runs about 35 operating theatres a day, so likely 200ish patients a day. In my 10 years in this department, we’ve not had a single case of awareness.
Good luck, talk to your surgeon when you see them, express your fears, and aim to talk to your Anaesthetist before the day of surgery.
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