How do trauma surgeons deal with the fact that the patients they operate on probably haven’t fasted the night before given that trauma patients don’t know in advance they’ll be having surgery?

Question

I know that with elective surgeries, patients have to fast the night before to prevent vomiting when they go under anesthetic, but I was wondering how this concern is navigated in trauma or emergency surgeries in which patients definitely didn’t fast the night before? Do they just try to deal with the vomit or is there a special procedure to prevent vomiting from occurring?

In: 1727

Answer 1

I had an emergency appendectomy and while I hadn’t eaten anything for the previous day due to severe pain, They ended up needing to do a CT to diagnose because I wasn’t presenting the textbook case for appendicitis. Ct scan I had to drink a giant tub of contrast agent, and when I came out of anesthesia I managed to throw it all up and inhale it into my lungs. Since it was general I only have vague memories of this but there was a lot of being encouraged to cough and the next day.everyone on the surgical team came to look at my mouth which I believe was scraped up from them vacuuming contrast agent out of my lungs. So that’s exactly why they asked that your stomach be empty. I don’t have any medical background but doctor internet says that I probably had a one in five chance of dying from aspiration of my stomach contents.