lets say a person wants to go into coma for whatever reason for two months, he finds a shady doctor in a shady underground hospital because hospitals won’t do it
how long can the doctors safely medically induce him into coma for?
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The longer one is in a coma the lower the chance they will recover fully from a long coma. I think the stat I learned in nursing school is you lose around 1% muscle every 12h if not used. So in 10 days you can waste quite quickly if you are not being turned, stretched, and stimulated frequently. As for the exact number that depends on the severity of other illnesses. Some people can “live” indefinitely in a coma state.
[Elaine Esposito](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Esposito#:~:text=Born,would%20not%20survive%20the%20night) holds the record. She was put into a coma by doctors at age 6. She died, never having woken up, 37 years later.
Edit: I was wrong! Apparently she held the record for a while but two people have “beaten” her now.
Also, as another person pointed out, she was put under anesthesia and never woke up, so not a coma. Likely a persistent vegetative state.
Got weekend plans, eh?
I sometimes think if having someone suspended in a tank like in Star Wars would be feasible for a long coma. Tubes would have o be used for breathing, feeding and waste and some fluid that wouldn’t damage the skin over time would have to be invented. And being in a tank would limit the access the medical staff have to the patient in an emergency. But the person wouldn’t be laying on one part of their body and the pressure of the fluid itself could be used for breathing. Maybe the muscles could be exercised with electrical stimulation.
I know Jordan Peterson basically did that to get off substance abuse. They put him under for like 6 months, and he’s been a little off ever since he came to.
I was in a car accident and put into chemical coma for 19 days. Lost 27 lbs. Took about 3 weeks to learn to walk on my own.
They have 24 hours to come out of it. If they’re not out of it within 24 hours, all of their belongings are open season for the taking. It’s a land rush. Ok, I’ll see myself out now. /s
Generally a “medically induced coma” means being sedated with medications and intubated with a breathing tube – but the term is not very specific. People who are very sick are sometimes kept sedated for day, weeks or months but this is done because it’s needed in order to safely do procedures, protect their airway, reduce their metabolic activity or other reasons in treating serious illness and it comes with serious downsides.
Being sedated for any length of time leads to muscle loss and d weakness, even after only a few days. The medications used can have dangerous effects, commonly low blood pressure, low heart rate and some more rare but more severe effects like propofol infusion syndrome. Being sedated like and completely reliant on care greatly raises the risk of infections (including ventilator associated pneumonia and line associated infections, ventilator associated lung injury,pressor ulcers, delirium, etc. You would not wake up the same as you were after 2 months.
In short, it’s not really “safe” ever but in many situations the benefits outweigh the risks.
Define “safely”
In those circumstances, forever is pretty likely. Taking them down and bringing them back intact is dangerous and difficult and maintenance needs extremely tight controls if you’re looking to bring all of them back. Shady folk need not apply.
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