raine66

Yeah, so your finally having it done, it has come round fast.....

OH has just said you need to go for a nice sleep when your having it done, you know speaking from experience and all.

acer rose

I had a general for a NHS day surgery a couple or so years ago. I requested day surgery to reduce the infection risk and my surgeon was fine with that. I was pretty nervous beforehand (maybe I'm just a control freak?) but I was fine, if a little "feisty" (according to the staff) as I came round. I had no real nausea but did feel a bit pissed for a couple of days. I was surprised how long that feeling hung around as I'd been told I only had to have somebody around at home for 24 hours but it could have been the mega painkillers I was on. No hangover mind

Alberta_Rose

Well I'll not wish you good luck cos you are in the very best of hands. See you afterwards!

AlexInBC

I know you're the doctor so I'm probably remembering wrongly (it's been a good few years!) but I've had 2 c-sections under spinal block and was told by the consultant (the second time around, when it was an elective section and I had time to care!) that a spinal is injected directly into cerebrospinal fluid sac, and acts rapidly, whereas epidurals are injected into the space outside the sac (epidural space) and take a while (20 mins?) to work. He also said that the spinal is administered once, acts rapidly, and lasts for up to a couple of hours - whereas the epidural is usually left in place and can be topped up.

AlexInBC

I've had spinals twice. Can't remember how I felt the first time (was administered after 18 hours of established labour and I'd gone through a couple of canisters of "gas and air" by that point ) but second time around, for an elective section, I remember feeling very calm... I've no idea whether this was due to the anaesthetic. I do recall that my BP plummeted, though, which was a known side effect of the spinal. I also had a complication for several weeks afterwards that couldn't be pinned down specifically to having the spinal, or nerve damage that occurred during the c-section, but it eventually rectified itself and I'd still rather opt to be conscious for an op., if at all possible.

Alberta_Rose

No, your memory's fine!

AlexInBC

Poff
Thanks! I tend to remember that sort of thing word for word, and yet really struggle if someone unexpectedly asks me my phone number, LOL!

On a totally different thread - maybe we should try to arrange a BE meet at Horseshoe Canyon with Piff Poff in the next few months? Sounds like there's a few of us who want to explore.

Alex

clynnog

A former co-worker of mine requested to have a mirror available so he could watch his groinal hernia operation. A couple of years later I was at the same place (Shouldice in Richmond Hill) and a mirror was the last thing I wanted to have available.

luvwelly

I think this is a fair point....I had a wonderful spinal for an elective C-section and felt completely numb from shoulders down and was therefore quite relaxed....no other sedation given to me but obviously cutting you open to lift a baby out doesn't actually involve any scary mechanical noises, so having had good GA experiences for other things, personally I'd go GA for involved knee surgery...being awake in an operating theatre is much less scary when a beautiful baby is likely the end result.

I'm fine with dentistry with just local anaesthesia (apart from impacted wisdom teeth) but I just wouldn't fancy a power tool on any other body parts while awake...I think it's because your teeth can more easily removed and therefore are not strictly part of your body in the same way.

From my experience I would also say spinal is way better than epidural for effective numbness...with epidural you can still feel tugging ....with a properly given spinal...you feel nothing whatsoever....completely numb. The needle going in did not hurt at all - they gave me a pinprick of local first.

Best of luck whatever your decision - lets face it modern anaesthesia is so good, you'd be pretty unlucky to have a bad experience with any of the methods.

luvwelly

I have had both and agree they are different...spinal much better for relaxed C-section as I said above.

ann m

BEST WISHES SMELLY !!!

Hope the op today went OK, and that you were suitably aneasthetised whichever option you went for !

It's 6.40pm in Calgary now - I hope you are sitting up and feeling OK, either still at hospital or at home (if you've pee'd ) and that you and your knees will be doing some fancy moves soon.

Mountain Girl

Thanks Ann. It all went really well and I went for the GA in the end. We drove home at around 6pm, in the blizzard. I slept like a log last night and I am now laid on the sofa up with the ice machine on my knee. I feel amazingly good this morning with little pain, but a little woozy. Must be the pain killers.

Banff hospital is lovely and I would recommend it to everyone.

ann m

Glad to hear it Miss. That must have made for an interesting drive home last night in that weather

Sure you are woozy from the painkillers, and not the large glass of wine you had with a leisurely lunch in front of the TV?!

Hope to catch up with you soon ...

blimey

Hi - Mrs. Blimey again,

To quickly reply to the into the CSF/epidural space issue, these two options are sufficiently similar to one another and dissimilar to a GA that the difference between them is negligible in the OP's situation. The experience and opinion of the anaesthetist placing and administering the modality should dictate which is chosen if a non-GA option is being considered. The two terms are frequently used interchangeably by the media and the public (and sometimes allied health professionals) and without looking at the medical record it would be difficult to know for certain which method someone actually had by history alone. I point this out so that the OP can evaluate the comments about these methods in that light.

With respect to sweeping generalizations about the risks of GA vs epidural etc, I would be very cautious in applying the findings of a specific study to a given patient and arriving at a conclusion for him/her. Studies have inclusion/exclusion criteria for example - the OP may not have been eligible for the study based on these and so applying the findings to him/her would be erroneous. As an example, while it may be true that "in general" patients who have GA's have longer stays, more complications etc, it may also be true that patients who require GA's are sicker, have more comorbidities etc that make them predisposed to these in the first instance.

It's definitely important to be informed and aware of the literature, but it must be tempered with critical appraisal and evaluation of these issues on a patient by patient basis. I doubt that any posters would be naive enough to take information from a website forum to direct their own health care, but sometimes patients feeling vulnerable and frightened take friendly information like this more seriously than perhaps intended. Having said that, forums like these can be very useful in sharing experiences and knowledge, and so I will sign off now and let everyone get back to it! Good luck with the procedure, I hope it works out well for you.

Alberta_Rose

See post #42.