Don't want General Anaesthesia

[gkeyt 0]

You might not meet the anesthetist/anesthesiologist until shortly before your procedure. Make sure you let them know your concerns specifically, so they can do their best to give you the best experience. All anethesia personnel have the goal of keeping you as comfortable as possible, not just pain but anxiety as well. They want to make sure you are in a good emotional state as well as physical. If you are concerned about remembering, or waking up, or feeling the endotracheal tube, let them know. If you have had post op nausea or vomiting, or have had weird reactions to certain medications in the past, let them know. There are lots of things they can to do optimize your particular experience.

As another poster mentioned, being intubated and under general anesthesia is required because this is a laparoscopic procedure. They will fill your abdomen with a certain pressure level of CO2, and if you don't have a breathing tube in place, you have a risk of getting stomach contents into your lungs, which is very bad. With this kind of surgery they tend to give a couple different kinds of nausea medication, since it is on your stomach and it is a lap procedure, but let them know if you have a particular problem with nausea. They definitely want to avoid any nausea after surgery.

The good thing is that nowadays general anesthesia is extremely safe. You will be asleep before the tube goes in, and won't remember it coming out. When you wake up in your bed, you might have some soreness from your surgery (everyone's experience is different, but I had little pain) but your anesthesia will probably not even enter your mind. And the great thing is you'll have your band and will be on your way on your journey.

I hope this helps a little. Good luck!

[smidgen21 0]

They have started doing spinal anesthesia for laparoscopic surgery at some hospitals (not the one I work at). They need to use Nitrous oxide gas instead of carbon dioxide. You can request an Anethesia consult. Call your surgeons office or call the hospitals Pre Admission Testing (PAT) department (sometimes called Pre Anethesia Testing). If all else fails ask to speak to the anethesia scheduling secretary and they can tell you have to schedule an appt with an Anethesiologist (although it may not be the one that ends up doing your surgery). At our hospital, all patients having anethesia have to speak with a PAT nurse the week before their surgery, and that nurse can request that anethesia speak with you. HTH.

I would not recommend IV sedation (i don't think surgeon would approve it either). You have to be absolutely still...remember they use VERY sharp objects inside you....if you move... OOPS, there goes the liver. Not what you want to hear in recovery.... JMHO.

[Bunkey1965 2]

Does anyone know if I am getting my surguery on April 1 and my 21 year old daughter has ecoli, should I be concerned? She got some medication for the infection and the nurse said its not contagious. I am worried because I dont want to go into surgery with this infection in my body. I am not showing any symtoms but either is she.

[Ariel 1]

I had a bad experience with IV sedation. I became very aggresive and was hitting the doctors and nurses. They had to restrain me until the medicine wore off and i came to my senses. I literally had bruises on my stomach from where a male nurse held me down. I was soo concered about this, and talked to the anest. and she assured me that it would not happen with general. And she was right. I love general and i would pick it every time over IV sedation.

[ajoneen 0]

They use a tube that goes into your stomach to size where the band goes and they aren't going to do that with you awake. I was told that they use a mighty powerful muscle relaxant because they need to be poking through the abdominal muscles and they don't want them fighting back(also why they told me they use a catheter during surgery).

Don't worry about the stuff that will be happening while you're "out of it" there is enough stuff that you will need to concern yourself with. Learning to use your new tool is just the beginning.

Good luck.

[ajoneen 0]

everyones got some in there system its when it runs a muck and starts having a party with friends that you have to worry. Just let you Dr know.

Good Luck!

[smidgen21 0]

Felicitas!

[denibun 0]

You can talk with your surgeon. I am doubting that anyone will do it, but it would definitely be possible. We do c sections and tubals via epidural anesthesia. There can't be anymore tugging with the lap band than there is with a c section or tubal.

[smidgen21 0]

Felicitas!

[gkeyt 0]

C sections and laparoscopic surgery are two totally different cases and need different anesthesia techniques. The standard of care for any laparoscopic surgery is general anesthesia with endotracheal tube because the pressure created by filling the abdomen with CO2 gas makes it likely that you would aspirate stomach contents into the lungs without an ET tube. Also a chemical paralytic is used during the surgery and whenever that is used, you need a machine to breathe for you, so you get a breathing tube. C sections don't have these issues. It's not a matter of the tugging and pulling--we do hip replacements under spinal anesthesia with sedation, and believe me there is tugging and pulling (and pounding) during that.

Also a previous poster mentioned doing spinal with nitrous--I don't understand what they mean by that. did you mean using nitrous to fill the abdomen instead of CO2? Because that isn't done--nitrous expands any air-filled space, so even inhaled nitrous isn't used during laparoscopic surgery, plus I'm not sure what the purpose or benefit would be. If you meant that they use inhaled nitrous with spinal anesthesia, that's theoretically possible but for the reasons mentioned previously, spinals are not used for laparoscopic surgery, including lap band.