The original “research” was all hit-or-miss discoveries typical of the 18th and 19th Centuries. A great boon to mankind, but I’m glad it’s finally being looked into with a modern eye.

Interesting article. I am surprised anesthesia isn’t better understood.

I know some of you are screaming “WHY DEAR GOD?” — The reason for this is actually very reasonable — it’s much less risky to have you semi-conscious, breathing on your own, than to fully sedate you and use a breathing tube and a mechanical respirator.Perhaps the most likely case that people here WILL run into is when you have a colonoscopy. I haven’t had a colonoscopy yet, myself, but my wife has, and she assures me that the worst part of the procedure is the preparation — they give you powerful laxatives, and you poop a LOT. She said that once they got the IV started, she didn’t remember a thing until she woke up.I myself had a procedure kinda like that, which is called a sigmoidoscopy. (Same idea, but less far up the butt.) This involved no anesthesia. The one saving grace is that the entire procedure is very very quick — like 2 minutes, tops.
I had an ulcer “blow out” so I had an emergency endoscopy — same idea, other end. After administering the above drugs, they stick a tube down your throat, and then use a fiber-optic viewer tube with some tools attached to look around, and cauterize the ulcers. That went perfectly. I had no memory of the surgery, and recovered nicely. (The scariest part of the whole ordeal was waking up on the floor, after having passed out, and then having the excellent emergency medical techs trying many, many times to start an IV to get fluids into me.)

Then, six weeks later, I had another endoscopy, to make sure everything was healed up, no new problems etc. This time, the Versed was not 100% effective, so I had a distinct memory of the surgery. After explaining what I remembered, the doctor concurred that I probably was conscious for some of the time.

You’re probably screaming, Maggie, but let me reassure you — the doctors HAD administered PLENTY of Fentanyl — I was feeling NO pain. I was just aware of the doctors talking, and the sound of my own throat, somewhere between coughing and gagging.

I was not scared or upset at the time, and I am not today. It was just this dream-like memory.

Obviously, if I were in pain, or if I were screaming, I’d feel very different about this. But I figure that if I were screaming, the doctors would have given me more pain meds and more forgetting meds, and I probably would not remember the event at all.Anyway, my main point: Most drugs, we don’t precisely know how they work. We have a pretty good understanding, but we don’t have all the details. But that’s far less important than two other things that we typically DO know:
1) We are very confident that when you take the drug, it is very likely to do the job it is supposed to,.

2) We are also very confident that when YOU take the drug, it is VERY unlikely that you will have a terrible side effect.

3) We are also confident (a little less), that if YOU take the drug along with 10 other drugs, some wine, some pot, and maybe you forget once in a while, or you accidentally take 3 pills instead of 1, it is still very unlikely that you will have a terrible problem.

To me, this is much more important than knowing, for example, exactly all of the chemical reactions that are involved.

After I came round I was told not to go to sleep afterwards which was really hard. I had people putting cold flannels on me and I had to literally hold my eyelids open. Horrible sensation.

I was fine the next day.

Your nightmare is slightly chilling, but fortunately unlikely – under an amnetic effect you’d not forget the pain afterwards, but rather during – making it all fresh. (A stubbed toe hurts a lot, but we think of it as minor because it’s over in a fraction of a second.  Without the memory of pain, pain is fairly harmless.) What makes pain unbearable is it’s prolonged nature, and the lack of control.

The – fortunately very rare – cases where the sedative/paralytic effects work and the amnetic doesn’t are the most nightmare-inducing things I’ve ever read.

Does anyone have an issue with topical and local anesthetics not working for them. Like at all? What happens for me is that it makes the area slightly puffy and tingly but full pain and touch/pressure sensitivity remains.

Novocaine at the dentist works very slowly for me. My dentist has this on file so they schedule extra time to let it soak in.

Going home on the bus I was incredibly happy. I thought I was the king of the world. I rushed home because I had just realized all this stuff which I absolutely had to write down. It wore off after a couple of hours and I still wonder if those techs accidentally gave me the wrong stuff.

Excellent and interesting article. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that GA is not well understood, when even basic sleep functions are not fully explained (and we trust the internal re-boot on that one every night). Nstzlogst: although there should be a “long and thoughtful conversation” between you and your anesthesiologist, (s)he is clearly the expert, and beyond recounting any problems you have faced in the past, you aren’t going to be making any meaningful choices except Yes or Abandon the Surgery.

Also, there are parts of the body that has very little nerve activity. Believe it or not, the chest cavity can be open and the heart exposed under local anesthesia. But remove a severe hangnail, put me under!

And isn’t some anesthesia meant to just keep the patient quiet and still? What if the patient could do that on their own?

What I think is really weird, though, is that I remember the events, what I said, what happened, etc. But I don’t remember the actual pain. I think your brain erases that – - I know I was IN pain, but I don’t remember the actual feeling…