If the reporting is accurate, which is really not a given with MIT, this is great news. For all its upsides, general anesthesia is still dangerous and very rough on you, and all these effects are always amplified for young patients.
> children sometimes wake up from anesthesia with a set of side effects including lack of eye contact, inconsolability, unawareness of surroundings, restlessness, and non-purposeful movements
In general, a very simple mental model for general anesthesia is that it's an unnatural state for your body and your body will do its best to get rid of it, similar to say alcohol or drugs. This means systemic inflammation, stress on your cardiovascular system, liver and kidneys, brain, and so forth. Most all of these issues scale with how much anesthetic you receive, similar to a hangover being worse the more you drink.
In other words, general anesthesia is rough on you just like getting black out drunk is, it's just more controlled and we do our best to try and limit the downsides because it's invaluable for surgery where applicable.
> In other words, general anesthesia is rough on you
Can confirm having watched our kids recover from general anesthesia multiple times.
Full disclosure: have three kids, eldest child at lifetime total of 4x general anesthesia so far (1x for endoscopy, 3x for surgery), youngest child lifetime total of two (1x endoscopy, 1x dental work). Middle child seems to have escaped so far... he asked recently what it was like, siblings answered unanimously - "terrible".
Interesting. My adventurous child (soon 10) has been under thrice and generally remembers nothing unpleasant, despite it being a bit worrying for the parents. She has been a bit confused and weird upon waking up, but whatever they have given her to ease her transition into waking life appears to have made her forget it. She tends to remember talking to me (or watching Bluey) in the OR and then she is talking to some doctor in another room, wondering why they are not putting her to sleep. The experience has been quite smooth despite one of the times taking place in more of an emergency setting after an accident.
I had a general anesthesia at 21 for dental surgery. The come back was a nightmare: nausea, shaking, cold and hot alternating, terrible headache, cramps, exhausted and mentally depressed during ~2 days. I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink (but brute force myself to do it), I couldn't think or concentrate on anything but the pain. The only close experience I can remember is the wake up after a blackout hangover but it really wasn't that bad compare to the anesthesia.
6 years later a car crash required artificial coma during 3 days. They drug me along the week following my come back. The dreams during the last day of coma and that week took me through fascinating and terrifying experiences half real (intubation, interactions with family and medics...) and imaginary (ever-repeting-same-day, interns having a fireplace in the ICU floor with guitars, mind-controlled bed to move around the room...). They finally gradually stop the drug and I was only a bit angry and physically suffering from my injuries but not that bad.
Big up to the amazing Royal Perth Hospital team for that amazing care. They saved my life and made the process a confortable trip.
I always wonder what was that drug that produce so weird half-wake dreams with not much side effects. And why they don't always use that for dental surgery and everything else. I heard hypnosis can work instead of a classical general anesthesia and am keen to try if the funny Australian drug isn't an option. Everything but not the general anesthesia.
edit: wonder if both experiences could have been the same sedative drug but the second had a hypnotic wake-up parachute drug during the comeback.
I’ve had one for an operation on a broken jaw, just didn’t think it was particularly rough. Of course it takes time to come round and be clear headed, but the OP kinda implied serious physical problems with “dangerous and very rough on you”. Maybe I just misunderstood what they were saying, but I thought they meant rough as in long lasting damage (which I didn’t think was the case), not temporary discomfort.
Your situation obviously isn’t ideal, but doesn’t have the same implication.
> I always wonder what was that drug that produce so weird half-wake dreams
The sibling comment here mentions Ketamine, which is possible, but if they’re giving that to you intravenously then all perception of time and space will be warped. It’s extreme. So wild dreams is one thing, questioning what is even real is more like ketamine.
It is after effect free though and doesn’t last long, so once stopped you can be over it within the hour. It also has antidepressant effects afterwards.
First off, glad it worked out nicely for you and there were no complications.
I'm gonna stretch the alcohol analogy a bit here, because that's most likely to be relatable to everyone, but of course the situation is a bit more nuanced with anesthesia. If you're a healthy adult, you could probably down a bottle of vodka. You might not enjoy it nor have a good time, but you'd most likely make it out the other end with a wicked hangover and some questions about life choices. If you're a small child, you might leave with permanent brain damage. If you have an underlying condition, you might have a kidney fail. Etc. Anesthesia is the same way. The fact that you, I'm assuming a healthy adult, walked away with few issues, doesn't make it any less risky.
Most healthy adults walk away from general anesthesia without longlasting effects. But for everyone else, you can already find a number of unfortunate experiences in this comment section alone. A large portion of people who go under do so because they're already in some dire state and need emergency help. Adding general anesthesia on top of that is a large source of risk.
