If you were in a car crash and had been eating all day, how is that different from a routine surgery where you weren’t allowed to eat for a certain amount of time before surgery?
Edit: based on some answers, perhaps I should clarify obviously I understand they have to perform surgery in an emergency. My question is more what do they do in an emergency when you haven’t fasted.
Thanks to those with real answers, I never knew about the special tube that could be used. That’s pretty cool.
I’m having surgery tomorrow and can’t eat so was just wondering how they handle food in the stomach during an emergency surgery situation.
In: 2585
The reason they have you fast is that under anesthesia food and acid can regurgitate up your throat and you don’t have any reactions in place to keep it out of your lungs, so you could aspirate that food and acid into your lungs, which is obviously very bad news. The less you’ve eaten, the lower the possibility of that happening. So if you know the surgery is coming, it lowers that risk. If you don’t know the surgery is coming, you have to run the risk anyways. It’s like running a sprint. If you know a race is coming, you aren’t going to eat a big meal beforehand. But if you’re being chased by a mugger, you’re gonna sprint anyways even if you just ate a huge meal.
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