Anesthesiologists Reveal The Craziest Things People Say After Surgery (2024)

FAQs

Does anesthesia make you reveal secrets? ›

Anesthesia won't make you confess your deepest secrets

It's normal to feel relaxed while receiving anesthesia, but most people don't say anything unusual. Rest assured, even if you do say something you wouldn't normally say while you are under sedation, Dr. Meisinger says, “it's always kept within the operating room.

If you're wondering what's going on, it's called disinhibition: a temporary loss of inhibitions caused by an outside stimuli. “They get disinhibition,” said anesthesiologist Dr. Josh Ferguson. “Like if you were to drink alcohol or some other medication, but this makes them forget that they're saying that.”

General anesthesia, which renders the patient unconscious for the procedure and sometimes for hours afterward, is more likely to cause confusion than other types of anesthesia. It is normal to ask questions repeatedly, forgetting that the question was asked and answered, due to anesthesia and pain medications.

Conscious sedation and general anesthesia can affect your short-term memory. You may not remember anything you say or do during the procedure or immediately after it.

Intraoperative penile erection is reported to occur in approximately 2.4% of male patients undergoing surgery. The incidence of erection varies according to age, with a frequency of 8% in male patients younger than 50 years and 0.9% in older patients.

While you are under anaesthesia your vital signs are constantly monitored to make sure you are 'asleep' and not feeling any pain. There is continuous monitoring of the electrical activity in your heart, the amount of oxygen in your blood, your pulse rate, and blood pressure.

Postoperative delirium – Confusion when regaining consciousness after surgery is common, but for some people — particularly older patients — the confusion can come and go for about a week. You may feel disoriented and have problems remembering or focusing.

Anesthesia is a great invention — it makes the pain go away and it's also the reason why there are so many funny situations that happen in hospitals. People that wake up after anesthesia may say really weird things like, “I want to marry a pineapple.”

What you may not know is that there is abundant scientific evidence that mental activities of the soul — perception, emotion, memory for example — continue while you are under anesthesia, albeit in an altered state.

Post-anaesthetic psychosis is a suitable name for the type of psychic disorder that occurs occasionally at once after the induction of anoxemia during anaesthesia. The term post-operative psychosis should be reserved for the psychiatric syndrome which appears acute several days following surgical procedures.

Why did my personality change after surgery? ›

A 2017 study suggests it's possible that changes to the brain may last after people are given general anesthesia for surgery. For some people, changes in behavior are temporary, while the changes persist for others. After surgery, some people may feel more confused or disoriented.

The occurrence of dreaming during anesthesia is a well-known phenomenon. In one among the numerous Leslie's studies on the topic, dreaming was reported in 22% of patients undergoing elective surgery [4], whereas other authors reported an incidence up to 57% [5, 6].

Uncontrolled emptying of the bladder may occur during anaesthesia but should not happen if you empty your bladder shortly before going to the Operating Room.

First and foremost, both cases are extremely, extremely rare. In fact, the likelihood of someone dying under anesthesia is less than 1 in 100,000. This is the same as 0.0001% of a chance.

About once in every 1,000 to 2,000 surgeries, patients may gain some awareness when they should be unconscious. They may hear the doctors talking and remember it afterward. Worse yet, they may feel pain but be unable to move or tell the doctors. “It's a real problem, although it's quite rare,” says Dr.

Anesthesia Awareness (Waking Up) During Surgery

This means you will have no awareness of the procedure once the anesthesia takes effect, and you won't remember it afterward. Very rarely — in only one or two of every 1,000 medical procedures involving general anesthesia — a patient may become aware or conscious.

Often patients are afraid that they might say or do things when they are unconscious that would embarrass them. You should be reassured that while you are unconscious you cannot talk or move and hospital and clinic staff are professionals trained to treat patients with dignity and respect.

Post-operative delirium (POD) can occur from 10 minutes after anesthesia to up to 7 days in the hospital or until discharge. It is commonly recognized in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) as sudden, fluctuating, and usually reversible disturbance of mental status with some degree of inattention.