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.
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The big risk for food and drink with surgery is you potentially vomiting while under anesthesia and then breathing it in. That’s why you’re told not to eat anything. Also, if you come to an ER and there is at all a chance that you’ll need anesthesia, we will not let you eat or drink anything until we know that’s not on the table anymore to reduce the risk as much as possible. This is why if you ask a registrar like me for some water, we always say we’ll check with your nurse.
Failing all that (and also if you either forget to not eat before scheduled surgery or can’t not eat for some reason), the anesthesiologist will need to be more vigilant about your airway and take extra steps to protect it from the possibility of vomit.
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