ELI5. If I were under general anaesthesia and then underwent critical trauma (ie. fed to a large animal, severed in some way) would I feel anything or wake up?
(Is there a point where general anaesthesia stops doing stuff when the body goes through enough trauma)
Sorry I realise how mental this question is haha
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One important disclaimer is that we don’t *really* understand how general anaesthesia works. But you could be fed to a wood-chipper feet first and you wouldn’t wake up ‘faster’.
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The body gradually loses function(s) based on the “depth” of anesthesia. You can be unconscious but still respond to painful stimuli (like moving when the scalpel cuts). But if you deepen anesthesia the body loses this ability as well, BUT will still largely keep ability to maintain breathing, blood pressure, heart rate, temperature regulation, etc. However, at even deeper levels of anesthesia the body loses these regulatory functions as well and need to be supported (like with a ventilator when breathing stops). At even further levels of anesthesia you can cause these vital functions to cease entirely (including brain function), up to and including death.
Anaesthesia works until your body metabolizes it. The body metabolizes modern general anaesthetics quite quickly. This gives anasthesiologists precise control over depth of a patient’s unconsciousness and the drug’s physiological effects.
So long as anasthetic blood-serum levels remain high enough, the patient will have no memory of anything that occurs.
To the patient, the moment just before they go under and the moment they regain consciousness are temporally adjacent, pinched together as if no time passed between them. From the patient’s perspective, whatever reality occurred while they were under simply doesn’t exist.
To answer your question- No.
General anesthesia does not stop working as long as the volatile agents are able to reach your lungs and brain.
General anaesthesia can work a number of ways. While the trauma is still occurring during anesthetia the brain is not associating the feeling with anything. There are different ways you can receive general anesthesia, for example ketamine will remove your association to pain but allow you to remember things and respond, or there is propofol which makes you unconscious
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