Anesthesia Awareness

Anesthesia awareness, or "unintended intra-operative awareness" occurs during general anesthesia, on the operating table, when a patient has not had enough general anesthetic or analgesic to prevent consciousness or waking up during surgery.

The patient may feel the pain or pressure of surgery, hear conversations, or feel as if they cannot breathe. The patient may be unable to communicate any distress because they have been given a paralytic/muscle relaxant. If anesthesia awareness does occur about 42% feel the pain of the operation, 94% experience panic/anxiety and 70% experience lasting psychological symptoms.

The most traumatic case of anesthesia awareness is full consciousness during surgery with pain and explicit recall of intra-operative events. In less severe cases, patients may have only poor recollection of conversations, events, pain, pressure or of difficulty in breathing.

O.O

Wiki

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Did you even know that such a thing could happen?

I've always had the idea that patients may wake up during the operation (which is possibly the worst thing that could happen during a surgery). But for the Anesthetic not taking affect (from the beginning but paralyzing you only) and the patient suffering the pain of the surgery while no one is aware of it is just out of this world.

=S