Anesthesia effects

[NixOlympica]

My grandad (90) had a tumor removal operation on Tuesday and everything went well according to the doctors. The thing that worries me and my grandmother is the fact, that although he seems to be awake, he isn't responding at all. Doctors says that anesthesia can be hard even for young people but it's 2 days none the less.

Anyone has any experience regarding this?

[Tunicle]

Not really enough details and not sure a forum is the best place but it is al recognised phenomena often due to changed pharmacodynamic characteristics at the binding site of the anaesthetic (although depends on type), the receptor has an increased response giving these symptoms.

In general it does just take a bit longer to "shake off".

Not sure what journals you may be able to see but
"More than a quarter of these patients had MMSE scores <26 on the third postoperative day and, even by day 5"
is quoted from COGNITIVE STATUS AND POSTOPERATIVE PAIN - OLDER ADULTS, Author(s): DUGGLEBY and LANDER,. JOURNAL OF PAIN AND SYMPTOM MANAGEMENT DOI: 10.1016/0885-3924(94)90142-2.

http://anaesthetics.ukzn.ac.za/Libraries/T..._2010.sflb.ashx

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P...g00093-0008.pdf

[Rommie]

During my hernia surgery I only received local anesthesia, however, it took about three full days to get back in control of all my body's functions, and about 6 months to get rid of an annoying pain in my spinal cord where they introduced the anesthetic in. Which wasn't supposed to happen.

I'm almost 20 and that was a local anesthesia, so my guess is that a full body anesthesia will take a longer time to fade.

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In space, nobody knows I'm a panda

[RickJames]

What was his Norm the week before surgery? 100% alert and oriented? Confused about person, place, or time? Any memory issues?

What kind of tumor and where was it?

Any history of Alzheimer's or Dementia?

90 is pretty old for anesthesia and it can take a few days to bounce back from a serious surgery even for a healthy adult.

However, "not responding at all" if he was responding before surgery is not normal 2 days later. Sleeping a lot yes. A bit confused yes. Memory issues yes. Lethargic yes. "Not responding at all"....no. That is if he was alert and oriented before surgery and able to have lucid conversations with little or no memory problems.

Full time nurse with 6 years specializing in geriatrics here.

[NixOlympica]

What was his Norm the week before surgery? 100% alert and oriented? Confused about person, place, or time? Any memory issues?

What kind of tumor and where was it?

Any history of Alzheimer's or Dementia?

90 is pretty old for anesthesia and it can take a few days to bounce back from a serious surgery even for a healthy adult.

However, "not responding at all" if he was responding before surgery is not normal 2 days later. Sleeping a lot yes. A bit confused yes. Memory issues yes. Lethargic yes. "Not responding at all"....no. That is if he was alert and oriented before surgery and able to have lucid conversations with little or no memory problems.

Full time nurse with 6 years specializing in geriatrics here.

100% oriented, I could normally talk with him and everything. No Dementia or Alzheimer.
He was hospitalized with rapid red blood cells loss (110 norm, he had 50 and brought to hospital)
He had 4 blood transfusions and later diagnosticated with malign tumor in bowels (somewhere higher).

At Tuesday he underwent the surgery, at Wednesday he was only sleeping, today as I've described at the beginning. He has opened eyes but doesn't seem to be otherwise much aware.

He also has inhaler, antibiotics and infusion (they wanted to give him drink from bottle but he didn't gulp).


I am visiting him at Saturday so I hope it will be better. Thanks for the helpful posts too.

[Agmen of Eladesor]

Basically the only rule for how someone will act or react when coming out from under a general anesthetic after a major surgery is ... what is their usual response when they've been under anesthesia before, as is the procedure that was done.

Literally everyone is different.

For example, I go under a general for a procedure, and when they wake me up afterwards - I pee and I'm good to go. I may still be down due to what was done to me, but normally I don't have any adverse reactions at all. (Five major, invasive surgeries so far, with six other minor surgeries also involving general anesthetic.)

On the other hand, my wife goes through a general body system shut-down, such that it may take her 3 days to pee after a surgery, and up to three weeks before she can poop again. (Seven major, invasive surgeries for her, with two minor ones done under local that should have been under general except for her reaction.)

From the sounds of things, if he was healthy prior to the surgery, then he should end up fine afterwards. There may be some disorientation - and elderly patients do sometimes tend to just respond slower in response to recovery than younger people simply because their systems have more mileage on them.

Rommie, actually general anethesia typically takes no real time to recover, because what they do is put your brain to sleep, not your body itself. That's why having a competent anesthesiologist is vital, beccause there's nothing quite as fun as waking up on the operating table with your chest cut wide open and someone poking around in there. Actually recovering from the effects of the surgery itself can take a while, though. For example, the last big one for me, when they did the thoracotomy and cut my chest in half, took out half a lung and bits and pieces of the other - I was a solid week in the hospital after that, and five months getting my strength back up. And that was 27 years ago. About five years ago I had bone spurs cut off one of my feet, which they put you out for. I woke up, I pee'd, and I was ready to drive myself home.

Good luck, Pilgrim.

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Oh god... The end of days... Agmen agreed with me.

[Rommie]

I was talking about taking a poop there. Took me 2 days, counting from the moment I was on my feet(4 hours after the surgery. Not bad, apparently:)), however, it took another day for it to feel 'normal'(given that it was a hernia surgery and they went in through my lower abdomen, actually using those muscles effectively took a bit of time).

I envy you for going through so many, Agmen. I only had one and it makes me uneasy of entering hospitals.

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In space, nobody knows I'm a panda

[RickJames]

100% oriented, I could normally talk with him and everything. No Dementia or Alzheimer.
He was hospitalized with rapid red blood cells loss (110 norm, he had 50 and brought to hospital)
He had 4 blood transfusions and later diagnosticated with malign tumor in bowels (somewhere higher).

At Tuesday he underwent the surgery, at Wednesday he was only sleeping, today as I've described at the beginning. He has opened eyes but doesn't seem to be otherwise much aware.

He also has inhaler, antibiotics and infusion (they wanted to give him drink from bottle but he didn't gulp).
I am visiting him at Saturday so I hope it will be better. Thanks for the helpful posts too.

He's still in the hospital so thats a good thing.

Inhaler, antibiotics, and infusion are normal for his age having surgery and most likely having a GI Bleed before the surgery.

The not talking would be something to monitor, particularly combined with not being able to swallow. Those can be signs of a CVA aka stroke, which can be a result of surgery and anesthesia in even healthy people.

Since he is still in the hospital and bed bound they hopefully already have him on some sort of anticoagulant therapy with heparin, coumadin, or lovenox. Which is there to help prevent and manage issues like that.

CVA's can be diagnosed fairly easily with just a Head CT, aka CatScan, which take minutes to do and is really just a series of HighDef Xrays.

I would not be too worried right now, give it another day or 2.

Most important thing is to reassure him that everything is going to be fine. Talk to him. Tell him stories. Tell him jokes. If he is religious, pray with him. Even if he appears to be asleep or has his eye's closed. The power of love, family, and connecting with another human being is not to be underestimated.

Your granpa and u will be in my prayers.

[Agmen of Eladesor]

I envy you for going through so many, Agmen. I only had one and it makes me uneasy of entering hospitals.

I think you're using the word envy incorrectly - unless you'd like to have gone through a bunch of them... :)

General anesthetic for major procedures at:
Age 12 - corrective eye surgery (3 day hosptialization)
Age 22 - right orchiectomy (removal of right testicle) (3 day hospitialization)
Age 22 - RPLND - Retro-peritoneal lymph node dissection (scar from that starts at the bottom of my breastbone and goes to just above my pubis) (7 day
Age 23 - Thoracotomey - removal of lung, etc - aka getting my chest cracked
Age 40 - Corrective knee surgery

Minor stuff:
Age 27 - Oral surgery - cutting out 20 teeth
Age 36 - Bone spur removal
Age 45 - Bone spur removal
Age 44 - Colonoscopy (they do that under a very mild general)
Age 49 - Colonoscopy

I've also had bi-lateral carpal tunnel surgery, too, but they do that while you're awake.

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Oh god... The end of days... Agmen agreed with me.

[Slavik]

had a full anestisia. Took me 3 hours after surgery to wake up properly and not touch my nose(nose job, needed fixing after a run in with a fist). Was still dizzy and nasseaus the entire day and slept like a roze the first night.

Took me roughly 2 days to function decently and a week to be 100%.

I hope he'll recover though, jeez what an age to be, I hope I grow that old one day!

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There used to be pictures here

once known as Richard Farbridge, OBE and Ronaldo Benitez