Awakening To a Nightmare

By: Rosa Soto  Escobar

Did you know that it’s common for people to wake up during surgery feeling the pressure and sometimes even pain of the procedure? Yes, that's something that could really happen. This is what doctors call anesthesia awareness, click ‘Read More’ to find out more about this scary yet rare experience.

What Is Anesthesia Awareness?

When going through surgery patients are given medications so they can be unconscious and not feel any pain. Anesthesia Awareness is a rare condition that can occur while being in surgery. This is when you can feel pressure, pain or being aware of your surroundings while going thru surgery.

What do patients feel when they are going through this?

Every patient may experience something different. Up to now it has been recorded that 48% of patients feel pressure, 28% feel pain and 28% feel sensations of not being able to breath.

Can You Alert Someone While This Is Happening To You?

While this is happening you are not able to communicate with surgeons or move to signal them because you are paralyzed by the medications.  Nowadays certain hospitals have machines that detect brain activity. Those machines tell how much brain activity is going on. That would be the only way to alert someone you are awake and alert.

How Common is anesthesia awareness?

One or two per thousand patients that go through surgery experience this. That is about 20,000-40,000 patients per year. That means this is very unusual and won't happen to everyone who goes under surgery.

Why Does This Happen?

Anesthesia awareness can happen for different reasons. The most common is that the anesthesia used to make you unconscious is inadequate or has been misused.

Who Can This Happen to?

It can happen to patients that have multiple medical conditions. Depending on the surgery or circumstance the risk is higher. This is most likely to happen in emergency surgerys like c-sections, certain types or heart surgery or surgery after traumatic injuries where the correct dosage of anesthesia might not be used.

How long does this affect last?

Depending on the patient and the surgery. It can last minutes or hours. It depends on how the anesthesia acts and affects you.

What happens with the patients after they have experienced  anesthesia awareness?

In some cases patients who experience anesthesia awareness suffer PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) this can come with repetitive nightmares, anxiety, irritability, and preoccupation of death. Most just have flashbacks and have trouble sleeping.

There is not really a way of controlling if this happens to you.  It depends on the anesthesia and the anesthesiologist. Although it is not a very common experience that happens to everyone you should be aware that this may happen. Comment below what you think about this crazy and rare experience.