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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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.
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