Anesthesia maintenance period. Recovery period from anesthesia

Any person is afraid not so much of the operation itself as of the anesthesia.

With all its types, an artificially induced reversible state of inhibition of the central nervous system occurs, sleep occurs, pain relief, muscle relaxation occurs, and some reflexes are inhibited.

They often ask: “Doctor, will I wake up? How will I feel?”

How long it will take and how you recover from general anesthesia, what sensations you experience - everything is very individual. This directly depends on the patient’s initial condition: his age, weight, gender, and concomitant diseases. Particular attention should be paid to which organ is being operated on:

Cavity in the abdomen: on the stomach, intestines, appendicitis, etc.;
Thoracic - that is, thoracic surgery, on the lungs, esophagus, trachea;
Heart surgery;
Neurosurgical;
Burn injury;
Polytrauma with damage to internal organs and the musculoskeletal system.

Also directly affects:

Duration of the operation and its complexity;
Qualification of an anesthesiologist;
What drugs are used.

How many people recover from general anesthesia after elective abdominal surgery?
If it lasts no more than one or one and a half hours, (as a rule) a preliminary diagnosis was established before the operation and confirmed during it, then usually the patient wakes up, or rather the anesthesiologist wakes him up already on the operating table. If everything is normal, reflexes are restored, breathing is adequate, sufficient, the patient has regained consciousness, consciously answers questions, is oriented in place and time, then the patient is transferred to a regular ward under the supervision of a nurse and the attending physician. We also recommend reading: Cardiogenic shock symptoms and treatment

How long does it take to recover after anesthesia?

Almost everyone who is about to undergo surgery asks themselves and doctors this question, but it is unlikely that anyone will be able to answer unequivocally how long the anesthesia takes to wear off and how it is removed. Recovery lasts from a few minutes to a certain number of hours. Therefore, how to quickly recover from anesthesia depends on several factors:

Duration of the operation. If it is complex and lasts several hours, then coming out of anesthesia will be more difficult.
Dosage of anesthetics. It is directly related to the time spent on the operation: with a multi-hour surgical intervention, the amount of the administered drug is correspondingly greater and its tolerability may be more difficult.
General health of the patient. A strong body is able to tolerate anesthesia more easily and recover from it faster.
Patient's age. Older people usually have a more difficult time with anesthesia.

Recovery from anesthesia is accompanied by the restoration of vital processes and the return to functioning of all functions. On average, this takes from 1.5 to 5 hours. The anesthesiologist continues to observe the patient after the intervention is completed, monitoring how the person returns to normal and whether there are any complications.

Possible side effects of anesthesia

How the body will cope with anesthetics and how the patient will recover from their influence is of particular concern to the patient. Everyone has their own reaction to the administered drugs: some come out of this state almost immediately, while others experience side effects:

Headache, dizziness. Anesthetics sometimes lower blood pressure, which leads to dizziness. Head pain is common after an epidural, but it goes away within a few hours.
Sore throat. If you had to use a breathing tube or intubate the patient, then this side effect is possible. Usually goes away within 2 days.
Nausea, sometimes with vomiting. The most common occurrence. The feeling of nausea directly depends on the drugs administered.
Confused consciousness. This usually affects older people.

These are the main, most common side effects of anesthesia. There are several more severe reactions of the body, but they are less common:

hallucinations;
speech or hearing impairment;
chills;
slow thinking;
numbness of the limbs;
sleep disturbance.

In any case, it is not at all a fact that the listed reactions to anesthesia will necessarily occur. Most of them can be avoided if you take into account a number of simple conditions.

General rules: how not to aggravate the effects of anesthesia, prevention

To help yourself and more easily survive the so-called “coming-off” from anesthesia, you need to follow several rules that doctors always warn about:

The day before surgery, you should absolutely not eat heavy foods. Dinner should be light, and no later than 18-19 hours (the doctor will say more precisely, it depends on the type of operation and its expected duration).
On the day of the operation (before the start), you can eat 6 hours (no later), and drink at least 2 hours or more. In each specific case, the possible time of eating will be more accurately determined by the anesthesiologist.
The anesthesiologist must know absolutely everything about the patient’s condition in order to select the correct dose of the drug or cancel the operation. This is especially true in cases where the patient’s well-being suddenly changed shortly before the intervention. It is very important!
You can drink no earlier than an hour later, and only with your doctor’s permission. You should not drink sweet or carbonated drinks: this can cause bloating or vomiting. It is better to drink plain boiled water or warm tea.
If drinking does not cause vomiting, after a few hours, with the consent of the doctor, you can eat some light and liquid food: fermented milk products, cream soup, jelly, vegetable puree. It is especially important to adhere to such a diet for those who have undergone surgery on the abdominal or pelvic region: these patients will experience disturbances in peristalsis for 2-3 days, so the food should be as gentle as possible and made from easily digestible foods.
If the operation was long and difficult, then in order to avoid memory impairment you will need to drink a lot of fluid: from 1.5 to 3 liters per day. This will help remove the drug from the body faster.
There is no point in enduring severe pain in the operated area, so you can always ask the doctor to prescribe a painkiller injection. But usually the patient who wakes up is given an injection immediately.

How to remove anesthesia from the body after surgery - Cardio

Medical personnel do everything necessary to help a person recover from anesthesia with minimal losses.

To avoid vomiting, you should not eat or drink anything for the first 2-3 hours after anesthesia. Your doctor will tell you when you can start eating.

Staying under anesthesia for too long can have a negative impact on. To avoid this, after surgery you need to drink 2.5-3 liters of water daily for 6-12 days (depending on the duration of anesthesia). Drinking plenty of fluids speeds up the body's cleansing of anesthetics and reduces their negative effects.

Analgesic therapy during the early postoperative period is mandatory. If the attending physician believes that the upcoming operation can be performed under local anesthesia, you should not insist on general anesthesia, since the narcotic drugs used for it, in addition to the negative symptoms they cause, form physical and mental dependence.

Many people experience residual effects for some time after surgery under general anesthesia - fatigue, decreased attention, and inability to concentrate. Their cause is usually not the anesthesia itself, but postoperative complications - for example, poor circulation due to lack of oxygen.

Prevention of complications

In addition to the sometimes difficult condition after anesthesia, there is also a risk of postoperative complications. But they can be avoided if you follow simple conditions.

After surgery, the patient cannot always breathe deeply, which is usually fraught with depression of respiratory function, congestion in the lungs and subsequent pneumonia. Therefore, in order to catch his breath, the patient needs to perform breathing exercises. An exercise that simulates inflating a balloon will be useful.

2 hours after the surgeon finishes his work, you need to start turning over (with the doctor’s permission), after 5-6 hours you should try to sit up on the bed, and after half a day or a day you can walk. Physical activity is necessary to avoid the formation of blood clots due to a long lying position. Perhaps the doctor will prescribe physical therapy.

How do you recover from anesthesia?

During the early period of awakening, the patient feels:

Pain in the area of the postoperative wound. Usually it is felt 5-6 hours after the end of the operation. This is good and normal, it means alive.
A sore throat. This is not fatal and is also absolutely normal. Everything goes away without treatment in 1-2 days! Infrequently, but irritation with the endotracheal tube occurs, it is associated with difficulties in tracheal intubation or inconsistency in the size of the endotracheal tube (for women it is No. 7-8, for men No. 8-9-10). For children under 5 years of age, there are special tubes without an inflatable cuff. Although children are different, so everything is individual.
Dizziness.
Weakness.
Chills. This is a violation of thermoregulation, drugs for anesthesia cause a decrease in body temperature, but today this is rare.
Rarely nausea, even less often, even extremely rarely, vomiting. Nausea and vomiting often occur after operations on the abdominal cavity, stomach, and intestines. All these peculiarities of awakening are easily dealt with by anesthesiologists and resuscitators in the intensive care unit.

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Special categories of citizens: in the postoperative period, persons suffering from alcoholism or drug use often experience agitation, aggressiveness, and an inadequate reaction to the environment. But these reactions are not directly related to anesthesia; it is rather a withdrawal syndrome! They can be treated quite easily with sedatives and infusion therapy, as well as symptomatic treatment.

Conclusion

The fear of going under the influence of anesthetics is understandable for many people. But this greatest invention gives doctors a unique opportunity to carry out any, even the most complex, operations and other actions without the threat of painful shock in the patient. Drugs that put the patient into a state of artificial sleep are constantly being improved, and perhaps someday a drug will be invented that does not cause negative reactions in the body.

But for now, it is important to understand that there are basic requirements to alleviate your condition after anesthesia:

thorough preliminary examination and compliance with the doctor’s recommendations before surgery;
correct actions after surgery regarding physical activity, breathing and nutrition;
a conversation with an anesthesiologist if there is panic or worsening of the condition before the operation, which will help the specialist select the appropriate drug depending on the health and psychological state of the patient, the anesthesiologist can also advise you how to quickly recover from anesthesia if you ask him about it.

Features of local anesthesia

Local anesthesia is understood as temporary anesthesia of a small area of the body due to the effect of external drugs on it or injection of a medicinal solution. In the definition one can immediately see a large classification of types of local anesthesia: superficial and internal. The latter, in turn, is divided into several more subtypes depending on the area of influence (epidural, conduction, spinal, infiltration).

Local anesthesia has found use in almost all areas of medicine, but the most striking example is dentistry. Today, almost all manipulations are performed with anesthesia. And if previously the patient had to endure 10-20 minutes while the doctor drills the tooth, cleans the canals, and puts a filling, now all pain is reduced to a second tingling sensation from the insertion of a thin needle.

How is it carried out?

All types of local anesthesia have their own characteristics, but on average it is something like this: a person is injected with medicine into a specific area. After a few minutes, sensitivity in this area is lost, and doctors can begin manipulation. The patient remains conscious, but he does not feel anything, not even the touch of a cold instrument. The general condition is also stable, although some admit to experiencing mild nausea and dizziness. But doctors attribute this more likely to anxiety than pain relief.

By the way! Sometimes, before inserting a needle, the skin is first numbed with external anesthetics to reduce pain from puncturing soft tissue. The result is a combined local anesthesia. It is used, for example, during epidural anesthesia.

How does anesthesia wear off?

The amount of anesthetic administered and the choice of its type are calculated based on the complexity of the operation and the patient’s physique. But the medicine is always taken with a reserve so that the anesthesia does not suddenly wear off during medical procedures if they require more time. Accordingly, after the end of the operation, the patient has a few more minutes (sometimes even a little more than an hour) for the anesthetic to stop working.

Sensitivity returns gradually, but quite quickly. First, a person begins to feel the touch, and after a minute or two he feels pain at the site of the manipulation. If it was a dental procedure, then the area where the gum was punctured or the hole after the extracted tooth may ache.

When treating caries, as a rule, no pain is felt after the anesthesia wears off. If it was a more complex operation, for example, to remove an ingrown nail, then the operated finger may begin to hurt quite severely because there was a violation of the integrity of the tissue. But these pains can be relieved with analgesics.

Possible complications

Some people are allergic to certain types of medications. Local anesthesia involves the use of Lidocaine, Novocaine, Bupivacaine, etc. And a person may experience a reaction to them in the form of:

hives;
itchy skin;
difficulty breathing;
swelling;
anaphylactic shock.

These reactions appear immediately after administration of the drug. And if the first two are quite tolerable, then the last three require termination of the operation and hospitalization of the patient. You can find out if you are allergic to anesthetics by first conducting an allergy test.

Some people note certain reactions after the local anesthesia wears off: dizziness or headache, weakness, sleepiness, and fever. But it is impossible to say for sure whether this is an allergy to the medicine or consequences after the operation.

Features of general anesthesia

A more complex type of anesthesia, which involves immersing the patient in a narcotic sleep and completely depriving him of not only sensitivity, but also consciousness. It is difficult for people who have never been exposed to this in their lives to imagine such a state. Therefore, many people are afraid of their first operation under general anesthesia.

General anesthesia is also successfully used today in all areas of medicine. Moreover, sometimes this is the only chance to perform the operation. In dentistry, this type of pain relief is also used when a person (usually a child) is unable to overcome his fear of going to the dentist.

There are two main types of general anesthesia: inhalation (through a mask) and intravenous. Sometimes combined anesthesia is used. What it will be in a particular case is decided by the doctor, depending on the specifics of the operation and the physiology of the patient.

What is it made up of?

General anesthesia consists of three “components”: drug-induced sleep, analgesia and muscle relaxation. In essence, a person simply falls asleep, but in fact completely different changes occur in his body. During normal sleep, breathing is calm, the body is relaxed, but reflexes are preserved.

And if you prick a person with a pin or simply pat him, he will wake up. And narcotic sleep also implies analgesia - suppression of the body’s autonomic reactions to all types of interventions: punctures, incisions, manipulation of internal organs, etc.

The third “component” of general anesthesia – muscle relaxation – is necessary to facilitate the work of surgeons during surgery. Due to the presence of muscle relaxants in the medicinal solution, the patient’s muscles are as relaxed as possible and also cannot reflexively react to interventions (contract, tense).

How is it carried out?

If this is general anesthesia of the inhalation type, then a mask is put on the patient’s nose and mouth, through which a gas-narcotic mixture is supplied. A person is required to breathe evenly and not resist the onset of sleep. Using sensors connected to the body, the anesthesiologist determines when the anesthesia has fully taken effect and signals this to the surgeons.

Intravenous general anesthesia involves the administration of drugs through the skin. This anesthesia is considered deeper and more reliable, while inhalation anesthesia is used for simple operations. If a difficult and lengthy intervention is ahead, then combined anesthesia is used: first intravenous, then a mask is added.

By the way! During general anesthesia, doctors must monitor the main indicators of the body’s vitality, thanks to equipment and external signs. The patient’s skin color, body temperature, heart function, pulse - all this allows you to monitor the course of anesthesia and the person’s condition.

How long does it take to recover from general anesthesia?

People sometimes fear for their well-being when they come out of general anesthesia after surgery because it is a complex process. Although, it is difficult for the anesthesiologist, but rather unpleasant for the patient. It's like waking up from a very heavy sleep. In this case, the following sensations may be noted:

Is it possible to make recovery from anesthesia easier?

You can reduce the intensity of discomfort if you properly prepare for surgery. To do this, you need to openly tell your doctor about the illnesses you have suffered and your concerns, follow a diet, and conscientiously take the prescribed medications. If the patient is self-willed in preoperative preparation, eats in secret from doctors, runs around smoking or takes some pills, then this will create problems during surgery. Moreover, they will be associated not only with immersion in and recovery from anesthesia, but also with the course of the operation itself.

It is necessary to follow medical recommendations even after general anesthesia has stopped working. If your doctor allows you to get up and walk, you need to do this to prevent thromboembolism (blockage of the venous vessels). Some people are advised to simply move their legs for the same reason. It is not recommended to grab a book or smartphone immediately after waking up: it is better to rest and think about something good, for example, that everything is behind. And under no circumstances should you ignore the doctor’s instructions, which may vary depending on the type of anesthesia and the operation performed.

Absolute contraindications

This list is conditional. In some cases, as mentioned above, deep anesthesia is used even if they are present. We list the main contraindications to anesthesia:

The patient has a disease such as bronchial asthma in severe or progressive form. This condition is directly related to the danger of laryngeal intubation during deep anesthesia. This manipulation can cause closure of the glottis or bronchospasm, which is life-threatening. That is why bronchial asthma and general anesthesia are a rather dangerous combination.
Pneumonia. After surgery, pulmonary edema may develop in this case.
Serious diseases of the cardiovascular system. These include myocardial infarction suffered earlier than six months, acute heart failure, as well as uncompensated heart failure. The latter is often accompanied by severe sweating, swelling and severe shortness of breath. Atrial fibrillation, in which the heart rate reaches one hundred beats per minute, is also an unacceptable condition.
Epilepsy, schizophrenia and some other psychiatric and neurological diseases. Contraindications for such diagnoses are associated with an unforeseen reaction of the sick person’s body to the use of anesthetics.
Temporary but absolute contraindications, in which surgery is usually not performed under anesthesia, is a state of alcohol or drug intoxication. The point here is that anesthetics will not work, so this procedure is impossible. Surgical intervention for a patient who is under the influence of alcohol or drugs can only be performed after complete detoxification of the body. Often in this case, the help of a narcologist is necessary. General anesthesia is used for patients under the influence of alcohol or drugs only for emergency medical reasons. However, in this case, large doses of anesthetics and narcotic analgesics are introduced into the body, which can subsequently lead to an unpredictable effect.

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Everything you need to know about anesthesia!

Anesthesia is an unconscious state of a person caused artificially in order to disable currently undesirable body functions. But the unconscious state is only one part of the effects of anesthesia. Its other task is to prevent the body from automatically reacting to pain. The autonomic nervous system is responsible for them, and it cannot be controlled by consciousness and works even in its absence.

And the final goal of anesthesia is to relax muscle tissue in order to provide full access to the problem area and create favorable conditions for the surgeon to work. Managing anesthesia is a difficult job, since the doctor can never predict what the reaction of a particular organism will be to certain substances. But recovery from general anesthesia is an equally important moment. It poses many dangers to the health and sometimes the life of the patient.

Please note that the term “anesthesia” assumes that the patient is in an unconscious state, therefore it is referred to only as general anesthesia. If pain relief is achieved in a specific area of the body, while the patient retains the ability to perceive the outside world, then it is incorrect to use the term “local anesthesia” here, since this is local anesthesia.

What kind of anesthesia is there?

Anesthesia is characterized by many parameters: by the potent substance used and the method of its entry into the body, by duration and depth, and by the purpose of use. Each of these groups has its own tasks, its own characteristics and advantages, as well as its own dangers, so:

Local anesthesia is intended to turn off sensitivity in specific areas of the body. And it is achieved through medicinal effects on certain areas of the nerves, which ensures loss of sensitivity of the tissues innervated by them. At the same time, the patient retains clear consciousness, as well as respiratory activity. This type of pain relief is used for patients with severe concomitant pathologies or in cases where the patient must be conscious. It does not have a general effect on the body, so removal from it is difficult and its consequences are minimal. The main disadvantage of this anesthesia is that the technique for performing it is quite complex and requires experienced specialists to perform it.

Inhalation anesthesia is achieved by inhaling anesthetic drugs using a special mask. It uses special “volatile” liquid substances, which include inhalational anesthetics and gas-like narcotic substances. Among them are nitrous oxide, fluorothane, methoxyflurane, and cyclopropane.

In its pure form, this method is used only in pediatrics, and for adult patients, mainly as one of the components of complex anesthesia. It is quite easy to use, has no serious side effects, is inactivated in the liver and is easily excreted from the body. That is why it is preferred in pediatric practice.

A very significant point is that the surgeon has the opportunity to freely control the anesthesia during the operation. This is especially important when the patient has concomitant pathology of the circulatory system and respiratory system.

Non-inhalation anesthesia - involves the administration of anesthetic drugs using one of the parenteral routes (intramuscular, intravenous, rectal). Its advantages are that it is technically simple, passes without a period of excitement, has a good relaxing effect, and its effect occurs quickly. The disadvantage of this method of pain relief is that its effect is short-lived, which makes it impossible to use it during long-term operations. Its area of application is many diagnostic procedures or minor surgical interventions. Recovery from this type of anesthesia is simple and lasts no more than one to two hours.

What is anesthesia and how does it affect the human body?

How does general anesthesia work on a person, why do patients not feel pain during surgery? The state of anesthesia is an artificially induced deep drug-induced sleep, during which a person completely loses all sensitivity. In this case, complete relaxation of the muscles occurs. This helps the surgeon perform the operation and ensures complete immobility of the patient.

The time to recover from anesthesia after surgery is also controlled by the anesthesiologist. Most often, awakening occurs in the first 10-20 minutes after completion of surgery.

Do not confuse general anesthesia with local anesthesia. With the latter, only local anesthesia of a specific area of the body is performed. During such an operation, the person is fully conscious. Local anesthesia is indicated for minimally invasive and short-term surgical interventions.

Drugs used to induce a person into a state of anesthesia have an effect on the cerebral cortex. They temporarily turn it off, as a result of which pain impulses do not enter the brain.

Scientists and researchers have not yet fully studied the effect of general anesthesia on the human body.

Some questions about the mechanism of its action remain without an exact and definite answer to this day.

There are two large groups of drugs for general anesthesia:

Inhalation. When using them, a state of anesthesia occurs due to inhalation of special drugs that are in a gaseous state. Representatives:

nitrous oxide;
fluorotane;
halothane;
isoflurane;
sevoflurane;
desflurane.

Injectable. They are administered intravenously. Their dosage and quantity are calculated by the anesthesiologist. Preparations:

fentanyl;
ketamine;
morphine;
promedol;
propofol;
sodium thiopental;
relanium;
diazepam;
sodium hydroxybutyrate.

Most often, during surgical intervention, a combination of various drugs is performed. For a short operation, one medication may be used.

Drugs for general anesthesia are difficult to tolerate for some patients. The state of such deep medicated sleep is stressful for the body, just like the operation itself.

Remember that you should not refuse surgery for fear of general anesthesia. Thanks to modern anesthesiology, surgeons have the opportunity to save lives and perform complex and lengthy operations. The percentage of severe complications due to anesthetic drugs is minimal.

Most often, the patient develops nausea and vomiting after anesthesia. Often these symptoms are associated with irritation of the mucous membrane by inhaled drugs, as well as the effect of one’s own gastric juice on the mucous membrane. Vomiting most often develops in children, as well as in patients with high acidity of gastric juice.

Vomiting in a child after surgery is most often not a dangerous complication and a sign of the development of some pathological condition. But just in case, you should immediately inform your doctor about it.

Brain edema.
Hypotension – a decrease in blood pressure.
Arrhythmias – disturbed rhythm of heart contractions.
Complications from the respiratory system. This may be hospital-acquired pneumonia or damage to the mucous membrane due to intubation.
Acute cerebrovascular accident, stroke. Elderly people suffering from atherosclerotic vascular disease are more prone to this complication.
Impaired kidney function, renal failure.

Separate from complications, hallucinations after anesthesia are distinguished. They can develop in patients during the first 24 hours. They are caused by drugs, such as narcotic analgesics.

Among some patients who are afraid of anesthesia, there is an opinion that it is better to endure pain during surgery than to subject your body to such a strong drug load. This statement is wrong. The very sensation of pain is many times more dangerous than anesthesia. Painful shock, reflex cardiac arrest, and vascular collapse can develop in a person feeling severe pain.

How long does it take for anesthesia to leave the body? The time it takes for anesthetic drugs to be eliminated from the body depends on their quantity, type and general condition of the patient. The length of this time is also influenced by the length of time a person remains under anesthesia and the severity of the operation. Most often in modern anesthesiology, short-acting drugs are used. They are eliminated from the body during the first day. This period may be longer in elderly patients.

Recovery after general anesthesia is carried out under the supervision of a doctor anesthesiologist-resuscitator and attending surgeon. The first day the patient may be in the intensive care unit.

While in the hospital, you need to follow all the doctor’s recommendations and not try to somehow speed up the elimination of medications on your own. All necessary treatment will be carried out by medical personnel; deviating from the prescribed therapy is dangerous. No folk remedies or “advice from neighbors and friends” should be used during this period.

If any abnormalities or symptoms appear, immediately report them to your doctor. It is prohibited to take any medications on your own, even painkillers or antiemetics.

You can eat and drink in the postoperative period only after the doctor’s permission. Most often, fasting is prescribed during the first day, and all the fluid the body needs is administered through IVs.

After you are discharged from the hospital, your doctor will give you recommendations. This could be diet, drinking regimen, medications. All appointments must be followed.

If the kidneys are functioning normally, patients are prescribed to drink plenty of fluids, aimed at removing the remaining anesthetic drugs. It is advisable to drink at least 30 ml of water per 1 kg of weight per day.

There are no specific and written schemes for how to quickly restore the body after anesthesia. Often the medications and diet prescribed in the hospital are sufficient. The rehabilitation period includes not only the removal of drugs from the body, but also the healing of postoperative wounds and recovery after the intervention.

Surgery performed under general anesthesia is certainly a stressful situation for the body. The elimination of the anesthetic drugs themselves takes a short period of time, up to a day.

As a rule, during this period the person remains in the intensive care unit, where he receives all the necessary assistance. Do not self-medicate or try to remove drugs from the body using any folk remedies.

They can harm your health and lengthen the recovery period.

Staged action of general anesthesia

Once in the human body, narcotic substances affect the functioning of all systems and organs. At each of the four stages of anesthesia, these changes vary.

Analgesia – when anesthetic substances enter the body
Excitement – characterized by short-term activation of all systems, followed by long-term relaxation.
Surgical intervention is the time of the operation when the functioning of the internal organs is maintained at the required stable level.
Awakening is when consciousness returns and sensitivity is restored.

How does a person recover from general anesthesia?

The moment of removing the patient from the state of general anesthesia should be considered the most crucial, when the anesthesiologist should focus on the patient and his condition. How long does it last? From the moment the anesthetic is stopped, the patient begins to recover from anesthesia. How long it will last depends on several factors:

Duration of surgery (the longer the operation took, the longer it will take to recover from anesthesia)
The dose of the anesthetic received (in addition to the duration of the operation, it is affected by the patient’s weight and his sensitivity to the drug)
Health status. People exhausted by the disease with many concomitant pathologies have a harder time recovering.
Patient's age. At a young age, general anesthesia is tolerated more easily than at an older age.

At this point, the patient gradually returns to sensitivity and consciousness. At the first stage, muscle tone and their reflex reactions are restored, later the nervous system comes into an excited state, this is noticeable by incoherent speech and the presence of motor restlessness. Only after this consciousness fully returns, then the patient awakens. At first, he is lethargic and inhibited, cannot navigate in space, has difficulty speaking and expressing emotions.

At this point, the anesthesiologist performs a series of tests to give a correct assessment of the degree of breathing restoration. Only after ensuring a stable positive result is the patient allowed to be extubated and transported to the ward.

Recovery of the body after anesthesia

After waking up while still on the operating table, the patient is drowsy and somewhat lethargic, although in contact with the doctor.
When he is transferred to the ward, the patient continues the so-called post-anesthesia sleep. How long does it last? Everyone's sleep duration is different: usually 1-2 hours, but sometimes it takes 6 hours before they fully wake up. How many people recover from general anesthesia? This usually occurs completely within 6-12 hours. As a rule, these are patients without concomitant pathology and normal physique. Patients who are overweight, in other words, obese, as well as with a history of alcoholism, who use drugs, who are emotionally unbalanced, with impaired liver and kidney function, and older people, recover from anesthesia a little longer - within two days. But, again, everything is individual, and each specific case may be different, since we are all different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkr8eZjfZEM

When to get up after surgery? The general rule is as early as possible! Don't linger! But of course, with the doctor's permission. Lying for a long time is fraught with the development of hypostatic pneumonia, acute thrombosis of the veins of the lower extremities, bedsores on the back, sacrum, and heels.

When can I return to normal work after anesthesia? After general anesthesia, after just two days, a person can perform normal work, work with complex mechanisms that require concentration, and drive a car! But the operating surgeons discharge the patient after 7-8 days, when the stitches are removed and the wound has healed. You can drink after anesthesia when your reflexes are restored and there is no nausea or vomiting.

You can eat it the next day, the diet is gentle: you can’t eat spicy, salty, fried, canned food, sausages, or alcohol. The Pevzner diet is usually followed.

The stage of recovery from general anesthesia after surgery is considered very important and requires the anesthesiologist to fully focus on the patient’s condition. Recovery from anesthesia begins the moment the anesthetic supply stops.

Consciousness and sensitivity begin to return to the patient: first, muscle tone and reflex muscle reactions return, and the nervous system is excited, which can manifest itself as incoherent speech and motor restlessness.

After this, consciousness slowly returns and the patient wakes up - in the first minutes he is disoriented in space, lethargic, inhibited, speech and expression of emotions are difficult.

At the awakening stage, the anesthesiologist performs a series of tests that allow you to correctly assess the restoration of respiratory function. Only after a positive result is the patient extubated and given permission to be transported to the ward.

In most cases, after surgery, the patient is transported to the ward of his department, where he was before surgery. The exception is those situations when the patient is in serious condition - in this case he is transferred to the intensive care unit.

Transporting the patient after surgery

It takes some time for the body to fully recover from general anesthesia. It is difficult to name the exact timing of withdrawal of anesthesia from the body, since the speed depends on many factors.

These include the length of time and the traumatic nature of the operation, the type of anesthesia used, the individual properties of the patient’s body, his gender and state of health before the operation - older people have a harder time recovering from anesthesia.

As a rule, modern drugs for general anesthesia are eliminated from the body quite quickly - within several hours, so the recovery stage itself is short.

There are steps you can take to relieve these symptoms.

Nausea and vomiting

The most common side effects of anesthesia. To reduce discomfort, you should follow a fasting diet; it is not advisable to even drink water. Nausea and vomiting respond well to drug therapy, so you can ask the nurse to give an injection of an antiemetic drug - this will help get out of the unpleasant condition.

During anesthesia, the body's thermoregulation system malfunctions, so after waking up the patient may feel chills. To prevent this condition, it is recommended to cover yourself with a warm blanket immediately upon arrival in the ward.

Headache

Severe headaches are often caused by the drug's effect on the brain. To relieve a pain attack, you can use conventional analgesics.

As a rule, the body needs about 4 hours to remove anesthetics and recover from anesthesia. In the postoperative period, the patient is often given tranquilizers and analgesics, so for the first 12 hours after the operation he is half asleep.

If the patient feels satisfactorily and is not bothered by nausea and vomiting, drug withdrawal can be accelerated by taking large amounts of fluid.

This should be done after consultation with the doctor - in some cases it is contraindicated to put extra stress on the kidneys.

Accelerating recovery from anesthesia is possible with the help of medications that promote the rapid metabolism of anesthesia drugs and neutralize the toxic effect of the drug on the body.

Visiting patients after surgery

Rapid recovery from anesthesia is facilitated by early activation - if the patient is feeling well, he should start moving and eating as soon as possible. It is recommended to ventilate the room as often as possible; saturating the body with oxygen promotes rapid recovery.

After surgery, you should stop smoking, as nicotine causes a sharp constriction of blood vessels, which slows down the elimination of the anesthetic drug. The same applies to alcohol - in addition to constricting blood vessels, it puts extra stress on the liver and kidneys, which are already overloaded.

The time it takes for the anesthetic to take effect after dental treatment varies for each patient individually.

Different organisms excrete the drug at different rates, and they react differently to the pharmacological action of the anesthetic drug.

All dental anesthetics can be divided into three groups according to their duration of action:

A short-acting drug (this includes Novocain). Medium duration (Articaine, Lidocaine, Prilocaine, Trimecaine). Long-term anesthesia agents (Bupivacaine).

Drugs used for anesthesia in dentistry

Old generation anesthetics are currently practically not used due to their side effects, but the average effect of Novocaine is 15-20 minutes, Lidocaine - 30 minutes-1 hour.

The effect of Mepivacaine will disappear on average after 45 minutes, Articaine - after 1 hour. The most powerful anesthetic in dentistry is Bupivacaine. It is capable of blocking sensitivity for more than two hours, exactly how long depends on the dosage.

In rare cases, anesthesia with Bupivacaine wears off after 6 hours.

The period of time during which the effect of dental anesthesia wears off depends on many different factors that can be taken into account to quickly recover from “freezing.” These include:

Inflammation at the injection site. Anesthesia drugs are alkaline compounds, and the site of inflammation has an acidic environment. As is known, acid neutralizes the effect of alkali, so pain relief in the presence of an inflammatory focus goes away very quickly, and in some cases it may not work at all. The presence of vasoconstrictors in the anesthetic composition. Vasoconstrictors are substances that narrow blood vessels, the most commonly used are epinephrine and norepinephrine. Constricted blood vessels slow down the absorption of the drug from the injection site, due to which the effect of anesthesia is prolonged and the numbness goes away much longer, and directly depends on how much vasoconstrictor is added per unit volume of anesthetic.

Ultracaine contains epinephrine, which has a vasoconstrictor effect.

Patient's age. According to statistics, older people are less susceptible to the effects of anesthetic, so their numbness goes away much faster after treatment. Chronic kidney and liver diseases. The metabolism of anesthetic drugs occurs precisely in these organs, so the time of disintegration of the drug depends on their work. The disease helps to reduce the speed of the organ, so the effect of dental anesthesia lasts longer. Anesthesia technique. Correctly performed anesthesia allows you to achieve long-term pain relief. If the anesthesia technique is violated, for example, the injection site is incorrectly chosen, the anesthetic will not reach all the necessary nerve endings, and the numbness after treatment will go away faster. In this case, the risk of pain during dental treatment increases. Type of anesthesia. Numbness goes away faster after infiltration anesthesia of the tooth.

Dental anesthesia in dentistry can be carried out using various methods, depending on the goals of treatment and the location of the site of dental intervention. The duration of numbness depends on what kind of anesthesia was performed.

The shortest effect is achieved by the non-injection method – topical anesthesia. It involves applying a gel containing an anesthetic to the mucous membrane, which permeates the upper layers of the mucous membrane.

In this case, the numbness goes away quickly - 10-15 minutes after application.

The effect of infiltration anesthesia is longer than application anesthesia, but shorter than conduction anesthesia. In many ways, the time of pain relief depends on the anesthetic used.

What a person may feel when coming out of general anesthesia

Until the narcotic drugs are completely removed from the patient’s body, he will feel their effects. On average, this process takes about four hours. When anesthetics are removed from the body, sensitivity to pain returns, so the first day after the operation, or even two (depending on the degree of complexity of the surgical intervention), the patient is administered strong painkillers, sometimes tranquilizers, according to the schedule, this makes the patient lethargic and lethargic. Typically, the infusion of medications continues at this time.

For the first hours after the end of the operation, the patient is prohibited from drinking; you can only wet your lips or rinse your mouth. After 3-6-10 hours, water is allowed to be drunk, starting with a few sips, gradually this dose increases and after a day or two reaches the usual volume.

On the first day the patient may complain:

For dizziness and headache. It is associated with the effect of anesthetic drugs on the central nervous system. In addition, medications used to suppress pain can lower blood pressure, which is manifested by dizziness of varying degrees of intensity. Another cause of headache is the use of epidural anesthesia, but it goes away after a few hours.
For painful sensations in the throat when swallowing and breathing. These phenomena may be caused by injury to the pharyngeal mucosa during intubation. As a rule, it takes two to three days to recover.
For nausea and vomiting. These are the most common complaints upon recovery from anesthesia; they directly depend on the type of drug used. To prevent this condition, you need to take your time to drink water, and if this happens, then there are medications that can cope with this problem. You just need to ask the nurse to give you an injection.
For chills. Very often, after regaining consciousness, patients complain of trembling; this is a consequence of a thermoregulation disorder. To normalize the condition, it is enough to cover the patient warmly and cover him with warm heating pads.

How do children recover after anesthesia?

During the early period of awakening, the patient feels:

Pain in the area of the postoperative wound. Usually it is felt 5-6 hours after the end of the operation. This is good and normal, it means alive.
A sore throat. This is not fatal and is also absolutely normal. Everything goes away without treatment in 1-2 days! Infrequently, but irritation with the endotracheal tube occurs, it is associated with difficulties in tracheal intubation or inconsistency in the size of the endotracheal tube (for women it is No. 7-8, for men No. 8-9-10). For children under 5 years of age, there are special tubes without an inflatable cuff. Although children are different, so everything is individual.
Dizziness.
Weakness.
Chills. This is a violation of thermoregulation, drugs for anesthesia cause a decrease in body temperature, but today this is rare.
Rarely nausea, even less often, even extremely rarely, vomiting. Nausea and vomiting often occur after operations on the abdominal cavity, stomach, and intestines. All these peculiarities of awakening are easily dealt with by anesthesiologists and resuscitators in the intensive care unit.

When doctors work with young children, their own characteristics also arise:

Anatomical, physiological and psychological (fear of the upcoming operation).
Difficulty in contact with children under 3-4 years of age.
Increased shyness in girls 8-10 years old.
Underdevelopment of the respiratory system.
Increased sensitivity to blood loss and overhydration.
Imperfection of thermoregulation. Heat production lags behind heat transfer - the ratio of muscle mass to body surface is lower.

Young children (up to 3 years old) after intramuscular anesthesia with ketamine, which lasts 30-40 minutes, wake up calmly after 1-4 hours.

Did you quickly recover from anesthesia? Let's discuss and tell in the comments.

How to remove anesthesia from the body quickly after surgery?

There are several possibilities for this. Firstly, toxic substances will be eliminated faster if you use medications that accelerate metabolism. Secondly, the faster the patient begins to lead an active lifestyle, the faster the effects of the administration of general anesthetics will disappear. Thirdly, drinking plenty of fluids, preferably vitamin drinks (rosehip decoction, sea buckthorn, compotes), and frequent ventilation contribute to a speedy recovery. Fourthly, anesthesia will wear off faster if you give up nicotine and alcohol. Since they cause vasospasm, which causes all metabolic processes to slow down. In addition, alcohol has a destructive effect on the liver, and in order to fully remove the remains of potent substances, the function of this organ should not be impaired. For the same reason, after undergoing a major operation, preventive courses of drug therapy with hepatoprotective action and maintenance of kidney function should be carried out.

How to remove anesthesia from the body

The risks posed by general anesthesia cannot be underestimated, so preparation and its choice form an essential part of the preoperative preparation of patients. The human central nervous system can be seriously damaged by the effects of anesthesia, and in some cases severe complications can occur. To avoid this, you can use Semax 0.1%.

Necessary risks

It is impossible to carry out a complex operation without the use of general anesthesia, since without it the patient will not withstand the painful shock. Recovery from anesthesia may be required if its use has caused a negative effect on the body:

Depression of consciousness and respiratory functions
Blood pressure surges
Arrhythmias
Chills
Nausea

The condition after anesthesia is especially unstable after neurosurgical operations Neurosurgical operations Emergency or planned surgical interventions in the functioning of the brain and spinal cord are carried out with the aim of correcting or eliminating the pathological condition.

The onset of a post-anesthesia state is much easier to prevent than to overcome. The drug “Semax 0.1%” is perfect for this purpose. Unique regulatory neuropeptide Neuropeptide or regulatory peptide are compounds of amino acids that regulate various functions in the body.

"Semax 0.1%" has proven itself to be effective both as a prophylactic dose before surgery and in the treatment of complications after anesthesia.

The therapeutic effect of Semax 0.1% is to prevent dysfunctional disorders of the parts of the central nervous system that are most affected during general anesthesia.

Recovery from anesthesia can be challenging if you don't plan ahead. Anesthesia can lead to hypoxia Hypoxia Decreased oxygen content in the body or individual organs and tissues.

brain and, as a result, to disruption of metabolic processes. In this case, the patient “recovers” from anesthesia for a long time due to dysfunction of the nerve pathways caused by a lack of oxygen in the neurons. Neuron A nerve cell consisting of a body and processes extending from it.

Structural unit of the nervous system..

Restoration of higher nervous activity
The functioning of the respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive and excretory systems

The likelihood of recovery increases if negative consequences after anesthesia are minimized in the first postoperative hours.

Semax is an effective remedy and a faithful assistant in the prevention of complications after anesthesia; it promotes the rapid restoration of the activity of functional brain systems that provide vital processes. With Semax, a person will be able to recover from anesthesia quickly and with the least risk.

Any person is afraid not so much of the operation itself as of the anesthesia.

With all its types, an artificially induced reversible state of inhibition of the central nervous system occurs, sleep occurs, pain relief, muscle relaxation occurs, and some reflexes are inhibited.

They often ask: “Doctor, will I wake up? How will I feel?”

Cavity in the abdomen: on the stomach, intestines, appendicitis, etc.;
Thoracic - that is, thoracic surgery, on the lungs, esophagus, trachea;
Heart surgery;
Neurosurgical;
Burn injury;
Polytrauma with damage to internal organs and the musculoskeletal system.

Also directly affects:

Duration of the operation and its complexity;
Qualification of an anesthesiologist;
What drugs are used.

How many people recover from general anesthesia after elective abdominal surgery? If it lasts no more than one or one and a half hours, (as a rule) a preliminary diagnosis was established before the operation and confirmed during it, then usually the patient wakes up, or rather the anesthesiologist wakes him up already on the operating table.

After general or regional anesthesia, the patient requires recovery in a hospital ward. The time required for the body to recover depends on the type, method and duration of drug administration. The less time the patient was under the influence of anesthesia, the less time it will take to recover and remove drugs from the body.

The postoperative recovery department employs a team of specialists, consisting of highly qualified doctors and nurses who have received additional specialization, carefully and continuously monitoring the condition of each patient, in order to ensure a safe and slow recovery from anesthesia. Careful monitoring of each patient's vital signs continues during recovery.

Discharge after surgical recovery (to the medical department or home) is carried out in accordance with certain protocols and only if the patient is conscious and able to move without assistance.

The Intensive Care Unit at the Assuta™ Clinic is designed for the recovery and rehabilitation of patients after surgery, regardless of the level of its complexity, whether it is a patient after an operation requiring intensive follow-up (such as gastric bypass), or a patient who has undergone a relatively simple operation (removal of a vertebral hernia ), but his health condition requires hospitalization in the intensive care unit.
The team of specialists consists of an anesthesiologist with experience in the intensive care unit and a nurse with additional qualifications.
The new intensive care unit at the Assuta Clinic fully complies with the highest international standard and is considered the most advanced and highly specialized in Israel.

Planning for the treatment of postoperative pain at the Assuta™ clinic begins at the preoperative stage, with the goal of identifying potential patients most suffering from severe pain after surgery and providing them with adequate care in the future.

A close-knit team of professionals, equipped with the most advanced technologies in the field of pain management, will do everything possible to prevent pain in patients.

Just imagine for a second: over a period of minutes to tens of hours, your body and mind are completely shut down and out of reach. You are not dead, but you are not alive either. You are caught between two realms, hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

This is the hard truth behind general anesthesia: a brutal, frightening experience.

However, it is also a necessary evil. An evil without which people will die by the thousands from ordinary appendicitis. An evil that has saved millions of lives over the past few centuries.

General anesthesia frees us from the excruciating pain of surgery. Without it, doctors would not be able to perform any operations - large or small, treat serious injuries or perform organ transplants. General anesthesia (GA) is an integral part of modern medicine, and it is here to stay in the foreseeable future.

However, this procedure and condition comes with a number of side effects that everyone should be aware of.

SIDE EFFECTS OF GAP ANESTHESIA The first part of your body that is affected by general anesthesia is your brain, and it is an integral part of the full-blown chain reaction. This organ is the “control center” of two different types of regulatory systems: humoral and nervous.

When the brain is switched off, both of these systems are temporarily disrupted, removed from their normal responsibilities: controlling all functions and processes in your body through hormonal (humoral) and nerve impulses.

Many of your hormones (including T3 and TSH) are produced in minimal amounts, while stress hormones like cortisol skyrocket. Your cerebrospinal fluid (the fluid surrounding your brain and spinal cord) is produced at barely healthy levels. Everything goes to sleep - and so does your mind.

And, as if that weren't enough, there's another important component to this puzzle: the anesthetic itself. Once entering your body through intravenous or inhalation routes, this chemical begins to circulate in your blood and interact with all organs and systems in your body. The first structures to be seriously affected are your liver and kidneys.

LIVER AND KIDNEYS: TWO MAIN WAYS OF DETOXIFICATION AFTER SURGERY

Let's be honest here for a second. Everything in the world is a potential poison, it all depends on the dose. General anesthetics are also extremely strong substances used in minimal doses, otherwise they will kill you in a matter of seconds.

Your body's universal way of dealing with toxins is to neutralize them in the liver (in most cases) by converting their original formula into something that is water soluble. The purpose of this process is to help the kidneys eliminate these harmful substances in the urine.

Postoperative patients, as a rule, are half asleep, since the effect of the painkillers used lasts 1.5-4 hours.

Based on the patient's condition, it is possible to determine how long it will take for the drugs to be eliminated from his body.

The main task of the anesthesiologist is to select the most effective drug, the use of which is associated with minimal risk of adverse consequences for the patient’s body. Currently, there are various types and methods of anesthesia, and medical scientists continue to conduct research in this direction and improve the drugs used.