First time being put under general anesthesia...scared! What do they do?!
Question:
First time being put under general anesthesia...scared! What do they do?
Answers:
I'm an anesthesiologist, and I NEVER ask anyone to count down, ever. It's so cliche.
What we ACTUALLY do, is attach some monitors to you to keep a close eye on you. Those are: a blood pressure cuff, a pulse oximeter (finger clip to measure blood oxygen) and EKG stickers. Then we have you breathe some extra oxygen. You will have had an IV started shortly after your arrival to the hospital (or surgery center), and we use that to get you off to sleep. About 15 seconds after we give you the medicine, you're out.
We may (or may not, depends on a lot of things) put in a breathing tube. We may start extra IV's after you go to sleep. A lot depends on what you're having done and how sick you are.
You get pain madicine while you are asleep, so that you will wake up (relatively) pain free. If you need more in recovery room, you'll get it.
While you're out, we watch you closely and keep you alive.
You'll do fine. We do this every day.