Been under 3 times. I think anesthesia is fucking awesome, it’s literally time travel.
Need me under for 1 hour? 3 hours? I’ll never know the difference. Will I wake up feeling like I’ve been mauled by a bear? Maybe. But I skipped the mauling part.
If there was an airline that would put me under for 9 hours of a 12 hour flight, I would gladly pay extra. Stack me in like cord wood, I’ll never know.
This is what sleeping after smoking weed for years feels like. You just fall asleep and wake up like nothing happened. Almost never dream anymore, which can be a blessing for people who have night terrors.
I quit years ago because I was going to school for aerospace engineering and knew I’d need a security clearance at some point
Years of bottled up dreams rising to the surface all at once was WILD
This thought process is basically what killed Michael Jackson
Except when I’m getting a colon cancer screening, I’m also not trying to perform 90 minutes of singing and dancing on front of 50,000 people.
Thats the thing people that have never gone under or fainted cant conceptualize…its not like falling asleep, its a literal off button.
Ive fainted a few times in my life, as well as been put under, and its like one second youre doing thing, next second youre on the floor, and the funniest part is, at least for me, when I came to after fainting, I felt like I slept for 12 hours…like rested in a way that I never feel waking up from normal sleep.
The only time I’ve been put under was for my wisdom teeth removal, and I woke up in the middle of surgery. I distinctly remember opening my eyes and seeing blue, I guess they had something over my eyes. I also remember moving my head, but that was around the time I went back under. I woke up with extra stitches in my mouth and not a single person would address what I was saying. In hindsight I should have had my mom hire a lawyer and sued the shit out of them (I was 12, couldn’t really do it myself).
All of this to say: fuck anesthesia and anesthesiologists. They’re basically playing a guessing game between going to sleep forever and waking up during surgery.
They’re overpaid.
I was given some kind of gas once for surgery and I found it hard to breathe. I told the nurses around me that I thought I was having a panic attack and the anesthesiologist chuckled, “It’s okay. I’m giving you something for that.” Then I was out.
I’ve been knocked out twice for surgeries.
First was for a wisdom tooth that shattered inside my jaw, right before covid shut down all non emergency surgeries.
They actually found a vein in the arm. Doctor talked to me a bit before they wheeled me back into a surgery room. Only the nurses in there. They were preparing and saw I was nervous. “Oh, don’t worry! He’s an amazing doctor.” She pauses. “We do call him the velociraptor though” me “what why?” “Cause he has short arms!” They say, laughing! “That’s mean!” I say. “Don’t worry, you won’t remember this”
“I’ll remember this!” I’m now trying to say, around a mouthful of gauze. I did remember at least.
Second time for an upper endoscopy. They can’t find a vein in my arm, so they put it in my hand. Taken to a much smaller darker cramped room with a tv that is surely showing my insides later. “Okay this might hurt, since it’s in your hand” “Ow fuck that hurts” and the next thing I know a new to me nurse is wheeling the bed and my talking ass into a recovery room. (I was talking about animal crossing, she was confused)
I was being put under once and just as I started to pass out, the anesthesiologist whispered, “Dream of me”
Then I was awake again and neve saw that man again.
That’s just how Bill jokes, he’s a joker.
Hahahahahahaha
Sweats nervously
Here’s what I experienced as a 14-year-old girl in 1989 undergoing general anesthesia:
That is literally the last thing my anesthesiologist said to me 2 seconds before I went under. (No middle finger though.)
In 1989 Bill Cosby was apparently in the height of Quaalude-ing / raping women. Wouldn’t become public knowledge scandal until decades later. Seems like my anesthesiologist apparently with a sick sense of humor and mischief, may have known about Bill Cosby’s crimes years before it became public knowledge. All these years in retrospect, this has concerned me a bit.
Seems FAR more likely he was asking if you like the most popular sitcom and comedian in the world to help you relax
What a strange thing to do… to ask a question while your patient is about to go under, and they might be wondering why their brain isn’t working to produce an answer… Yes very relaxing
Or, you know, he was just asking if you liked a show that was popular at the time, the way people did then.
No, people did not go around asking each other if they liked Bill Cosby in the 1980s, especially not one blink away from general anesthesia.
His show was the number one rated show throughout the 80’s, and anesthesiologists are trained to keep people talking so they can better guage the anesthesia’s effectiveness (and reduce anxiety, but we can see how that played out lol).
I’m sorry that something like this happened, in hindsight it would be something that would visit my brain just as I’m falling asleep as a fuck you from my subconscious. That said, though, there is reason to believe it was just very poorly informed small talk. Again, I’m sorry — that genuinely sounds creepy as fuck when it’s put together with hindsight.
After i go under someone has to give me a push every now and then so i keep breathing - i normally breathe very slowly compared to other people, which translates into nearly stopping to breathe after anesthesia. Last time i had a mandatory 24 hour stay in the ICU due to the nature of the surgery, and the damn machinery next to me made a racket every now and then when my O2 levels dropped - which i ignored - and a nurse came by and gave me a push to get me conscious enough to continue breathing.
I was also told that i chatted with them a few times, but i cannot remember that lol.
(And i have to add i fucking HATE surgery in the beginning of the day, because that means i will be awake, uncomfortable and fucking bored without options to entertain myself all night.)
Don’t piss off your anesthesiologist, they can put you under and you feel everything but can’t respond.
Or even worse, just not show up
One experience I had with an anesthesiologist was pretty much them putting the mask on me, a moment or so passes and I ask “wait, aren’t you gonna ask me to count down from 10 or something?” and the guy was like “…what? oh, right, uh, sure… countdown from 10 or whatever.” “10-- zzzzzzzzzzzz”
The first time I ever had surgery, I was anxious in advance. My mom told me “don’t worry, usually what happens if that they ask you to count down from ten and by the time you get to nine you’re asleep.” She was right.
I’m approaching my ninth or possibly tenth surgery and I’m pretty sure I haven’t been asked to count down since. The most recent time I had surgery, when I woke up, I asked when we were going to start.
I don’t think they asked me to count down either the last time I was put under. But then again I was slightly preoccupied by the ice cold bucket of liquid fire that spread through my veins. Apparently that’s what a small fraction of people experience with the stuff they used. Would have been nice to get a warning tho.
I can feel the liquid spreading through my veins - specifically my chest - but it doesn’t feel painful. Rather it feels pleasantly cold like drinking a fresh glass of water. I’m sorry your experience was less pleasant.
I love that feeling.
Very much the same.
Haha yeah, that was my experience. “So how are you feeling?” “Yeah, I can feel the juice spreading through my system like I’m on fire. It’s pretty painful” and then I’m out.
That whole experience was a radical way to confirm my pain tolerance seems to be above average so I ain’t complaining, though. It’s a nice change from when I was a kid and having panic attacks at the thought of needles.
I loved this. I’ve had surgery recently (2023) and as a kid—I’m always shocked at how quickly they knock you out.
i remember getting very dizzy and i asked wtf is happening. they laughed, then told me to count up. i remember getting from 1 to weirdly far, like 13
I woke up during the last bit of my first cataract surgery (was awake through the entirety of the other one). I remember being in the hallway, waiting to be rolled into the surgery room and then waking up in a panic with one of the doctors calmly repeating, “Don’t freak out.”
Cataract surgeries you’re typically awake for. Or rather, sleep isn’t drug induced: you’ll still be laying down in a quiet, dark room, so people sometimes fall asleep naturally (and then wake up naturally, understandably freaked out) but they generally won’t give general anesthesia unless you really can’t tolerate it.
Last time I underwent surgery, I remember lying on the operating table when the anesthesiologist asked me if I felt anything. I replied “Not really, I feel normal”. That was the last thing I remember.
That’s how they get ya.
They point and say, “Look at that!” And turn up the sleep juice, then you’re gone, for like no time at all, And then you wake up to find your wisdom teeth are missing and the anesthesiologist is getting bribed by the tooth fairy.
When I woke up from having my wisdom teeth out, I had crazy and terrifying hallucinations all the way home. While we were parked waiting for something, I saw someone run up, press their face against my window, and scream my name while slamming their fists on the window. I closed my eyes and curled up into a ball, and I was instantly in some sort of cave system underground that was rapidly collapsing and burying me alive. I don’t remember much else but my mom said I was freaking out the whole way home.
I’m terrified of anesthesia now and I have yet to find any explanation for what happened to me.
That’s pretty heavy, sorry to hear (read) you had to go through that. If you don’t mind me asking, why did you need full anaesthesia? I also had my wisdom teeth pulled out recently and all the doctors I asked said local is fine unless you have a serious reason.
Honestly I have no idea, it was about a decade ago or more. I thought everyone went under for it until my most recent girlfriend told me that she got hers out with local anaesthetic.
Definitely ask them for which drugs they used, and if you need anesthesia again later, give that list and your symptoms to your anesthesiologist.
That’s unusual, if you need anesthesia again you should definitely tell them about your previous experience. They might be able to switch drugs or use a lighter dose that still gives you amnesia about the operation without having a bunch of terrifying side effects.
More like “this is just a little oxygen” and then you’re asleep.
The mask is just oxygen - they want your blood as saturated with O2 as it can be. The stuff that knocks you out comes in from the IV, and it knocks you out so completely that you literally don’t even breathe on your own. So, once that stuff kicks in it’s gogogo time for the anesthesiologist, cuz you’re basically holding your breath until they get you intubated, which allows the ventilator to take over.
*There are probably exceptions to that, but 99% of surgeries requiring general anesthesia will go like that.
Many anesthetics actually have an amnesiac effect as well. If you’ve ever been under general anesthesia then you likely had a minute or two of talking with the anesthesiologist that you will never remember and that last “this is just oxygen” moment is not actually the last moment you were conscious.
I feel very very bad for my medical teams if that the case cuz I resist drugs until they knock me out, to my perception, and am chatty and inquisitive up until I lose memory. I can’t imagine I’m less annoying after if I’m not just out cold already.
They don’t bother trying to lie to me about my drugs tho cuz I’m asking about them. And the equipment. What drugs are you giving me? Oh this is fentanyl? It feels nice, I get why it’s a controlled substance, yeah. What’s that for? What’s that do? Cool, yeah, tell me more about your job. Oh what kind of gas are you giving me? Sorry for being so chatty but thanks for telling me! (Same shit I do fully coherent, but with situationally acceptable drugs and a group of people invested in responding to me, excellent.)
I had the same experience recently … The doctor was clearly annoyed.
And I understand why. It was a dental surgery. Probably performing one of those is challenging while your patient is nervously blabbing.
The last thing I remember before waking up is the doctor saying “okay, you get one more question” and me saying something irrelevant.
“Ok, this is just a bit of oxygen. Hey, what’s your bank account number?” Mwa ha ha ha! You’ll remember NOTHING!!!
For my first surgery I had been told something like the above. I was twelve and didn’t have much to be embarrassed about, other than the things that might worry every twelve year old boy, but I was still concerned. When I was in recovery I asked the surgeon “what did I say while I was under?”
He responded “I’m sworn to silence.” I worried about that for months if not years, especially because I had to have two more surgeries under his care.
Nothing embarrassing was ever publicized AFAIK.
The jokes on you! I don’t know what my bank account number is and I can barely remember my phone number!
My bank account number is 10…9…8…7…6…5…4
Not transmissible in this comic: The feeling of the anaesthetic creeping up your arm from the injection site.
Been there, done that.
And whatever they gave me wasn’t like this comic. I felt it creep up my neck towards my brain and then it was immediately lights out. Pretty sure I took the opportunity to say “goodbye” right before that. Might have been “goodnight”.
The waking up was very much a struggle though, so if there’d been a sadistic anaesthetist on the ward, that second going to sleep might have been more like panels two and four.
Uhhhhh. I do not remember that feeling at all. Are you sure that’s supposed to happen? I’ve gone under anesthesia several times and that’s never happened to me I’m pretty sure.
Doing a bit of web searching leads me to believe that they probably took it from chilled storage and didn’t warm it up as much as they could have before injecting me with it. The creeping sensation was a cold one.
Most likely your describing propofol. It’s stored at room temperature, but causes a sensation that’s comparable to Icy Hot, but how it hits an individual patient varies from person to person. In the moment it can feel scalding hot, blistering cold or anything in between, including nothing at all.
The clarity of your memory of that part tells me you might be a touch tolerant to it - I’d run that by your anesthesiologist if you ever need another surgery.
It was cold, but not ice cold like medical sprays or menthol candy. That said, I guess it’s possible that’s just how that feels on the inside of my arteries. It’s not exactly something I have (or anyone has) much experience with.
Or it could be that the intervening decades have dulled my memory of it.
There doesn’t seem to be much consistency - even the same patient could find it really painful one operation and not at all the next.
Propofol is weird stuff.
I’ve also had the cold creep up my arm a couple of times (4 surgeries in total so far)
When I got my tonsils removed, in my early 30’s, it was trough a drip (?) in my arm. It came in 3 waves as they upped the dosage. First one was ‘oh this is calm and pleasant’. Second one was ‘so drowsy i can barely speak’. Third one i barely felt coming before lights went out.
Its called a cannula. I had the same for my tonsils, except the guy said “this is just fluids to keep you hydrated” then I woke up hours later in another room. Lol
That was an interesting read. Especially the “third wave”.
