What happens to you while you sleep during surgery: The anesthesiologist reveals the details!

Numerous operations are performed on patients every day, but few know the complicated process of putting them to sleep with anesthesia.

The anesthesiologist's job is to numb your consciousness, eliminate pain, and immobilize your body during surgery. It measures your pulse while you are asleep, checks your breathing and blood pressure. Anesthesiologist Henry Jay Przybylo reveals exactly what happens after you fall fast asleep on the operating table!  

The "valves" between the throat and pharynx loosen, allowing the contents to pass into the mouth, until the gag reflex no longer prevents entry into the throat. If the food ends up in the airways, the patient may suffocate or the acidity of the lung may damage the lung tissue.

Patients are usually advised not to eat anything for 6 to 8 hours before surgery. Only clear liquids are allowed, even up to two hours before the operation, taking into account that they should not fill the stomach with sourness. Fatty food produces the strongest acidity, which takes eight hours to be eliminated from the stomach.

Some patients feel everything

To ensure complete amnesia, they are sometimes given additional drugs during the procedure. It is said that no patient will remember what happened until they were in a deep sleep, but some do.

Older people need a smaller dose

The percentage of inhaled gas that is necessary to achieve a state of chemical coma does not differ greatly, given the species and size, be it mouse, elephant or human. In fact, more variation appears with age than between species – the older you are, the less gas is needed. The same cannot be said for anesthesia drugs which are applied by injection.

The amount needed increases as oxygen consumption increases. Small species tend to consume more oxygen per kilogram than large species, and as a result, a kilogram dose of anesthetic drug injected into a human can kill an elephant but not a mouse.

Injection is the last step

It is common to use three types of gas: desflurane, isoflurane, and sevoflurane. Sevoflurane is the most popular. It differs little from ether, which was first used in 1846, but it dramatically shortens the time to unconsciousness—only about eight to ten breaths are needed before the patient falls asleep.

The hormone, sometimes called adrenaline, speeds up the heart rate and raises blood pressure. This is life saving", reveals the expert.

Why are you confused after waking up?

There is a deep belief that anesthesia steals something from the patient's mind. Allowing the patient's family into the corner room early on only reinforces this mistaken belief.

Compared to the seconds it takes to induce anesthesia, gases take significantly longer to wear off. The patient is able to respond to commands quickly after the operation, but recognition requires more brain function and the latter returns, explained dr. Przybylo.