"The god of war at the wine table, a thousand cups are not poured, can a little anesthetic pour me? Doctor, what if it doesn't work? ”
"Doctor, are there any side effects from general anesthesia? I usually have a good memory, will I wake up and become forgetful? ”
"How long does the general anesthesia work, will I wake up suddenly, and what should I do if I wake up during the operation?"
"Doctor, I heard that a shot of anesthetic will make you stupid for three years, is it true?"
Doctor, doctor, doctor......
In the face of anesthesia, patients are always full of worries and fears, especially the unknown situation after anesthesia, so that patients can't help but incarnate "100,000 whys" before the operation, causing various questions.
What exactly is anesthesia? Are the narcotic side effects of the online rumors true or false? Let's follow the popular science article to learn more.
1. Anesthesia is not just as simple as sleeping
Anesthesia is an important means for human beings to shield pain through the effect of drugs when they take medical means to treat diseases. In medicine, according to the different scope of action of anesthetic drugs on the human body, two concepts of "local anesthesia and general anesthesia" have been formed.
Local anesthesia, also known as local anesthesia, refers to the treatment of an anesthetic drug applied to a local area of the patient's body or a specific part of the patient's body while preserving the patient's consciousness. General anesthesia, on the other hand, is more complex.
General anesthesia, there are three ways: intravenous anesthesia, inhalation general anesthesia, and intravenous aspiration combined with general anesthesia, and the anesthetic drugs concentrate on the brain and inhibit the central nervous system in a short period of time, so as to achieve loss of consciousness, loss of pain, muscle relaxation, memory loss, etc.
During anesthesia, patients will go through the induction period (falling asleep after injection), the maintenance period (intraoperative anesthesia observation), and the awakening period (regaining consciousness after surgery).
During the maintenance period of anesthesia, brain activity is limited, and the signal connection to all parts of the human body will be minimized, and it is in a state of unconsciousness to the outside world, no pain, inability to move, and no memory of the anesthesia time, which cannot be simply equated with a state such as sleep or death.
There is an obvious difference between the actual effects of local anesthesia and general anesthesia, as if the effect of general anesthesia is better, is general anesthesia better than local anesthesia?
Local anesthesia can act precisely on the lesion site, with little impact on the body, and the patient can maintain consciousness and interact with the doctor in treatment, but the disadvantage is that it is easy to get tired and fearful after maintaining the same position for a long time.
Patients with general anesthesia are unconscious and painless, eliminating fear, but general anesthesia acts on the whole body, and the impact and burden on the human body will be relatively large.
Clinically, it is not easy to decide between local anesthesia and general anesthesia, and it is not a random choice for doctors or patients.
Consideration of anesthesia is a complex and arduous process at every step, and in some respects, anesthesia is more important than the surgery itself.
Second, people are "stupid" after general anesthesia? 3 truths about anesthesia that everyone should know
As the saying goes, "there are many people who are popular", the more important anesthesia is in clinical practice, the more people discuss it, and the topic involves the impact of anesthesia on intelligence, consciousness, waist, etc., but the truth and rumors sometimes do not match.
1. Does anesthesia make the brain stupid? Affects children's intelligence?
There is no actual scientific evidence for the accusation that "anesthesia makes people stupid", but only to observe the slurred speech, blurred memory, and confused expression of patients under general anesthesia during the subside of anesthesia after surgery.
The anesthetic drugs used in clinical practice have the least impact on the human body and the highest safety, and the human body will metabolize and disappear on its own within a few hours to a few days after surgery. However, there is a process of human metabolism, and patients who have just woken up from general anesthesia after surgery will naturally have the above symptoms due to the influence of anesthetic drugs.
2. Can a person suddenly wake up under general anesthesia?
Yes, but extremely rare.
The condition in which a person wakes up after general anesthesia is called intraoperative awareness. During the operation, it was known that most of the patients were due to their special constitution, which had an extraordinary rate of drug metabolism, and in addition, the type of anesthetic drugs, equipment and depth of anesthesia also had a certain impact.
Medical investigations have found that the incidence of intraoperative knowledge in mainland China is only 0.06%-4%, which is smaller than the chance of winning the lottery.
3. Is postpartum low back pain related to anesthesia?
According to incomplete statistical surveys, the incidence of postpartum low back pain is 45%-76%.
Postpartum low back pain refers to the symptoms of lower back and hip pain in women after giving birth, sometimes accompanied by radiating pain in the lower limbs. The vast majority of cases during caesarean section or painless delivery are performed with a lumbar puncture to complete an epidural anesthesia. This kind of anesthesia that occurs in the lower back has successfully "borne the blame" for postpartum women's low back pain.
However, a 2012 British medical study found that the incidence of postpartum low back pain in women with and without anesthesia was 38% and 40%, respectively. It was demonstrated that there was no direct causal relationship between postpartum low back pain and anesthesia, and that the side effects of anesthesia did not include postpartum low back pain.
3. Are general anesthesia and lethal injection the same anesthesia?
In life, there are only two scenes where anesthesia is used, one is surgery and the other is death penalty injection, and inevitably someone links them together, strictly speaking, these two are not the same.
The same is anesthesia, general anesthesia surgery is like a two-way ticket, and death penalty injection is a one-way ticket, and the goal and dosage of the two are very different.
There are 3 stages of lethal injection:
1. Inject a lethal dose (generally 5 grams), mainly barbiturates (clinically eliminated drugs) based on sodium thiopental. The prisoner is unconscious.
2. Injection of a lethal dose of non-depolarizing muscle relaxant, the effect of the drug is more than 2 hours, and the prisoner's spontaneous breathing stops.
3. Inject a lethal dose (100mEq) of potassium chloride. The prisoner's heart stopped. Until 4-6 minutes later, the brain is irreversibly damaged to brain death.
After the medical examiner finally confirmed the death, lethal injection ended.
It can be seen that the goal of the use of general anesthesia and lethal injection is to ensure that it does not exceed the tolerance range of the human body as much as possible and reduce the burden on the human body as much as possible, and the other is to make the prisoner die as painless as possible, and the key is the lethal dose.
Anesthesia is one of the most important safeguards for people when treating diseases, and paying attention to the role of anesthesia is a good thing in itself, but everyone should also learn to understand the effects of anesthesia from official channels and not be misled by a large amount of misinformation on the Internet.
At the same time, it is also hoped that people can widely disseminate and accept the content of medical rumors, so that more people can be exposed to positive medical common sense.
Resources:
[1] Zhang Zhijian, "Does Anesthesia Harm the Brain? Is local anesthesia better than general anesthesia? The doctor told the truth...". Popular Science China. 2022-05-11
[2] Xu Menglian, "Restoring the Whole Process of "Anesthesia": Not Just a Shot and a Sleep......". Life Times. 2022-08-21
[3] Wang Hongchao, "Is Postpartum Low Back Pain Really Related to Anesthesia?" 》. Shandong Provincial Maternal and Child Health Hospital. 2023-02-24
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