How long does it take anesthesia to wear off?!


Question: General anesthesia. How long does it take to wake up and how long before you are completely "with it". Does it take longer to wear off if you have a long operation vs a short one? I have had surgery before ( 3x)-I just don't rememeber the first day after the operation.


Answers: General anesthesia. How long does it take to wake up and how long before you are completely "with it". Does it take longer to wear off if you have a long operation vs a short one? I have had surgery before ( 3x)-I just don't rememeber the first day after the operation.

It depends on a lot of factors.

The length of the surgery plays a big role, because you're going to get more medication for a longer surgery than a short one. The gases that we use to keep you asleep go quickly from lungs to blood to brain, where they do their thing. They also leech slowly into fat and muscle. If you have a short surgery, there isn't much time for that, but if you have a long surgery, there is. Just as they go slowly into those tissues, they come out slowly, and you still have a little bit to get rid of.

The choice of drugs that the anesthesiologist uses also plays a part. Some gases hang around longer than others, and we use about half a dozen other drugs as part of the anesthesia. Some pain medications are long acting and can make you drowsy.

Patients have different sensitivities to the drugs we use, and that influences how they wake up. Obese people tend to wake up more slowly, as they have more fat to store the gases, and tend to hang on to them longer. There are other complications with anesthesia in the obese, but I'm not going into that here.

For some short operations, I can have patients wide awake in the operating room when the procedure is done. For very long and invasive surgeries, I might keep them snowed overnight, sometimes on a ventilator. Every case is different.

Well, "completely" it would take 24 hours.

Depends on the person and amount they were given

It depends greatly on how big of a surgery it is, because they will give you more if it is longer, but once the surgery is over, it takes about 30 minutes to a few hours depending on the person and the length of the surgery

I've had 5 surgeries, some of them minor. It seemed that it took me longer and I felt worse after the minor "band aid" or "same day" surgeries. It all depends on the type of anesthesia being used and the person it's being used on (metabolism plays a big part). My good friend had surgery and they used sodium pentathol, and he didn't come out of it for 2 days.

The common med they use wears off in just a few mins after given.

You were probably on high doses of pain meds during the surgery and that takes awhile to wear off

It varies from person to person really. I have had nine surgeries and do not wake up from anesthesia well at all. I usually freak out when I first wake up because I don't know where I am and don't remember I have had surgery. Some people don't react this way. As for how long it takes to wake up, they can wake you up in less than a minute if they want to--or they can drag it on for a few minutes. They tend to wake me up slower to give me less "freak out" reaction time. And about how long it takes before you're completely "with it?" It usually takes me a good two weeks to fully get over the anesthesia. I mean, it does a number on your system.

24 to 38 hours except in cases like mine, went under anesthesia in 1980 and I think I am still under its influence sometimes- at least thats how i explain why I can't remember much from the late 60's to mid seventies. And my sometimes erratic and weird behavior, and why I am ramble on so much when I answer questions, what was the question again, did I answer it?

It can take 1-3 hours to wake up...about 2 days to get it totally out of your system. I don't think overall it makes a difference how long the surgery is. It might initially take longer to wake up.

Just had surgery in Jan.'08.

Now a days,you come out of it very fast.You don`t even
throw up after.I had a couple surgeries in the past couple
years.I always felt good when I woke up. GOOD LUCK

From my personal experience, I still have gaps in my memory from the effects of the anesthesia. It does depend on how long you're out and how many surgeries you have. My surgeries were when I was young. However, I do have good news. Parts of your memory do come back after a period of time.





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