How to recover from anaesthesia
TOWARDS the end of surgery, your anaesthesiologist may tone down your anaesthetic (except the oxygen) and give you medication that will facilitate recovery and a smooth and pain-free return to consciousness. You gradually regain consciousness. <br>
Last week, Dr. Arthur Kwizera discussed maintenance of anaesthesia. This week, he discusses emergency from anaesthesia and the recovery period
TOWARDS the end of surgery, your anaesthesiologist may tone down your anaesthetic (except the oxygen) and give you medication that will facilitate recovery and a smooth and pain-free return to consciousness. You gradually regain consciousness.
Your anaesthesiologist usually needs to reverse the effects of the muscle relaxants with the injection of two more medications. As consciousness returns, your anaesthesiologist makes sure that you can breathe without help.
Once you are able to breathe without any help from the anaesthesiologist, the breathing tube is removed.
By carefully calculating the right amounts of each medication, your anaesthesiologist can ensure that you are completely unconscious during the operation, but awake and pain-free at the end of the procedure.
At the end of surgery, you are then wheeled to the recovery room or post-anaesthesia care unit, where you are monitored for complications.
Common complications in the post-anaesthesia care unit include pain, nausea and vomiting, breathing difficulties, fall in blood pressure and delirium.
These are more common in patients who have undergone general anaesthesia and the vigilance around them is usually more intense.
Sometimes if the surgery has been long and complicated like in brain, lungs and cardiac surgery, you may be taken to the intensive care unit to continue life support and monitoring of your recovery.
Most patients are discharged from the intensive care unit the following day if there are no life-threatening complications.
The basic tenet is that general anaesthesia must only be given in absolute indications where alternative forms of anaesthesia cannot be given or in emergencies where the airway has been compromised or there is no time to prepare for regional anaesthesia.
The writer is a lecturer at the College of Health Sciences, Makerere University
Send your questions to
doctor@newvision.co.ug
TOWARDS the end of surgery, your anaesthesiologist may tone down your anaesthetic (except the oxygen) and give you medication that will facilitate recovery and a smooth and pain-free return to consciousness. You gradually regain consciousness.
Your anaesthesiologist usually needs to reverse the effects of the muscle relaxants with the injection of two more medications. As consciousness returns, your anaesthesiologist makes sure that you can breathe without help.
Once you are able to breathe without any help from the anaesthesiologist, the breathing tube is removed.
By carefully calculating the right amounts of each medication, your anaesthesiologist can ensure that you are completely unconscious during the operation, but awake and pain-free at the end of the procedure.
At the end of surgery, you are then wheeled to the recovery room or post-anaesthesia care unit, where you are monitored for complications.
Common complications in the post-anaesthesia care unit include pain, nausea and vomiting, breathing difficulties, fall in blood pressure and delirium.
These are more common in patients who have undergone general anaesthesia and the vigilance around them is usually more intense.
Sometimes if the surgery has been long and complicated like in brain, lungs and cardiac surgery, you may be taken to the intensive care unit to continue life support and monitoring of your recovery.
Most patients are discharged from the intensive care unit the following day if there are no life-threatening complications.
The basic tenet is that general anaesthesia must only be given in absolute indications where alternative forms of anaesthesia cannot be given or in emergencies where the airway has been compromised or there is no time to prepare for regional anaesthesia.
The writer is a lecturer at the College of Health Sciences, Makerere University
Send your questions to
doctor@newvision.co.ug