This happened to someone I know and it happens to lots of people. Has anyone experienced this? There are those that awake fully and those who are paralyzed, but their minds are awake and the they feel everything during surgery...pretty sad.

When I was studying, a lady I rented a room from had the experience of waking up and being paralyzed during surgery.

She said, she felt everything. The surgery was to remove a tumor from her cheek bone. The docters didn't even appologize or anything. It traumatized her for life. She was 60 years old at the time.

I'm going for surgery next month to remove a gallstone. I have seriously worried about this. I hope it doesn't happen.

I woke up in the middle of surgery when I was having a cyst removed from my wrist. They had a sheet up so I couldn't see their work. My nose started to itch but I couldn't do anything about it because I had both arms in tourniquets. The nurse seen me stirring and came over to my bed. She seen my nose twitching and asked if my nosed itched. I nodded yes and she smiled and then walked away. I remember thinking "Bitch! Scratch my nose!" Then I fell asleep again. I woke up later in the surgery again as they were finishing up. The wall was still up but I noticed there was a light above my wrist that was turned off and I could see the relection of them stitching me up.

I had surgery on my eyelid a few years ago. And while they didn't put me to sleep, (they just numbed the area with a shot), it was really weird feeling them cut into it. Didn't hurt, but I could feel everything they were doing.

I wonder why they can't knock you out some more if they see you waking up.

i'm not saying waking during surgery doesn't ever happen, but i do think many times, in cases where there is a claim to have "woken up", people aren't fully understanding the difference between being placed under general anaesthesia where one is rendered fully unconscious and requiring of intubation to assist breathing (and a situation wherein the patient's eyes are often taped shut, as well, therefore necessitating a waking patient to reach up and remove said tape before being able TO see anything), vs. receiving a local anaesthetic/conscious sedation combination which can leave a patient with no clear remembrance of any of the procedure, but which also can allow some patients to later recall brief snatches of conversation, or sights, smells, etc. from the procedure and is not a true incidence of a patient having 'woken up' during surgery.

JuliePurplehead said:

Did you feel what they were doing?

MoniGram said:

A little. I felt a little pressure on my wrist. It didn't hurt.

It's a huge fear of mine though. I just had surgery about a month ago to remove cysts, endometriosis, and adhesions and I swear I was a wreck in the weeks beforehand because I was so worried that this would happen to me. More worried about that than actually getting better.

It went fine, although when I woke up in the recovery roon the pain was so horrible that I thought they must still have me cut open.


This probably stems from an article I read recently about people waking up during surgery. This one woman woke up when they were removing her EYEBALL.

WillyWonka said:

I agree. When I had my breast reduction, I had the whole tubes up the nose and my ass was knocked OUT. I didn't wake up (thank goodness, I think that one would have been a little freaky!). But in situations where I had general anesthesia such as my wrist surgery, wisdom teeth extraction, etc. I woke up every time. I was calm but I still woke up. And even with my colonoscopy, I can remember it even though I was told that I would forget the events. I remember when it started hurting, the nurse started giving me more drugs in my IV and I remember Heart's "Crazy On You" was playing on the radio. And I remember the camera being pulled out of my bum and asking the dr "are we done?" That was truly freaky.

JuliePurplehead said:

freaky indeed. i've had assorted procedures done under conscious sedation - or 'twilight sleep' as some refer to it - and it's weird to later recall random dreamlike images and memories of the procedure itself, or even brief exchanges with the doctor or nurses. i once had an upper endoscopy performed, and i remember a series of disjointed memories from it: the nurse asking me to swallow a spray to numb my throat, glimpses of the monitor as the doctor routed the endoscope into my stomach, the doctor telling me he was finished and was taking out the mouthpiece and tube.

what bothers me most about conscious sedation is that, for me, when i began coming out of the drug/s, there is always a period of time where i am apparantly awake enough to engage others around me in conversation, but yet am still under enough that, when it happenes that i suddenly reach full awareness of my surroundings, i literally do so while speaking. as in, right in the middle of a sentence. this phenomena always leaves me slightly concerned as to what i may have said before regaining total control of my mouth.

one time the above occured, i was in the midst of animatedly regaling the nurse about my appreciation for marty robbins.

I woke up when they were going to HAMMER AWAY some of the inside sinuses in my nose They'd sedated me enough to knock out an elephant but I panic when my nose is stuffed/blocked and they put swelling reducing tampons in my nose and that woke me the fuck UP. The nurses and anaestheseologist (sp) looked like and the surgeon said "I thought she was asleep?? " and the nurses were like "ummm, yeah... if we give her more she might die"

Well I didn't die and they put me asleep again. I'm not doing it again though and I'm now officially allergic to morphine.

JuliePurplehead said:

Normally a local anesthesia is administered to you during the procedure so that if you do wake up, you can't really feel the pain

That's why you're normally not in pain immediately upon waking up and it normally takes a few hours after the procedure for you to start getting REALLY miserable.

Imago said:

Which is only possible when they're working on your limbs or face, right?

eikonoklastes said:

I'm not sure really.

eikonoklastes said:

certain abdominal surgeries can be performed with a local anaesthetic and sedation, such as a Cesarean section or hernia repair.
[Edited 3/9/08 10:50am]

My problem has always been that they cannot get me to wake up when they want me to.
I tried to tell the last anesthesiologist I had when I had sinus and septoplasty surgery. He did not listen to me. So I spent the night in the hospital though it was just day surgery. It was horrible, I kept drifting in and out and waking up just to vomit blood.

unlucky7 said:

I haven't, but I saw something on TV about it recently. Pretty scary!

i think this is one of the main reasons i would go for surgery whilst still awake with the area numbed at least then you can say if it hurts it scares me to think you could be lying there feeling everything and not being able to anything to stop it or tell anyone

Imago said:

Oh I was miserable from the second I woke up. They kept asking me, "Why are you crying? Why are you so sad?" All I could do was cry because it hurt so bad.

and then I got more and more lovely morphine.

JuliePurplehead said:

unlucky7 said:

I woke up during a surgery once and told the doctors to be careful down there....and faded back out!!

DexMSR said:

I started coming out of sodium pentathol when I had my wisdom teeth removed. They had also given me a local, so I didn't feel any pain. But I could hear them chipping away at the tooth they were working on. The nurse said, "Just relax and go to sleep." And the next thing I knew, they were bundling me back onto the waiting room.

I was awake during an emergency c-section. They did the ice-cube test before cutting into me to check the epidural. I was so scared, I grabbed the surgeon by the arm and said "I'm so scared!!!!" I'm sure that didn't help a bit

I couldn't feel the pain, only pressure. I was shaking around on the operating table every which way. It was like they were rummaging around in a sock drawer on the other side of the screen. The master fainted

ZombieKitten said:

awwww

Christ I'm glad i never experienced that...

Genesia said:

On a side note, getting your teeth drilled/filled without novocaine is actually better IMO. I've had it done a couple times now, and it really wasn't bad at all. It beats having to walk around the rest of the day talking like you had a stroke, LOL. The drilling is akward, but it really isn't that painful at all...just gets a little sore. I was surprised.

Tom said:

I've had it done both ways...but I don't really remember which was worse. I haven't had a cavity in 30 years.