Disclaimer: In this post I am sharing my recent anesthesia experience. I am not a doctor and it is to be used for informational use only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice.
When you are disabled, you often have a lot of complex health issues and sometimes need more surgeries than a non-disabled person would. I have had around thirty to forty surgeries throughout my life because of my disability but not everyone with my disability will need a lot of surgeries and it depends on the individual. People with milder forms often will have fewer health issues and not need as many surgeries as someone with more severe forms. I have had many surgeries throughout my life that have required me to go under anesthesia because they would be too painful to do awake. I had a great anesthesiologist as a child who understood that I don’t need as much anesthesia as someone without my disability would but now that I don’t have that, I almost always have issues with. Recently I had a minor procedure for my bladder that required anesthesia and I expected to have some issues because I always do but this time it was a little extreme. In this post, I am going to talk about side effects I experienced with my last experience going under anesthesia.
I couldn’t wake up– When you wake up from anesthesia, it is normal to feel a little more tired than usual for about a day to two. I am used to feeling a little tired after anesthesia but this last time was different and I had a very difficult time waking up even for a little bit which is not normal even for me. I couldn’t open my eyes for the first day and could only briefly open them to go to the bathroom, and even then my eyes were closed most of the time because I physically couldn’t keep them open. I had to figure out a way to do tasks with my eyes closed which was very tricky and there were times I injured myself because I couldn’t keep my eyes open long enough to be able to do that task. My body was struggling to function but I didn’t feel like I was more tired than I normally would be and I just couldn’t open my eyes. Fortunately, I didn’t have this problem for very long, and by the next day it was significantly better but that first day was rough because I couldn’t do anything. The only thing I could do was lay there because I couldn’t even open my eyes to watch tv.
I got so dizzy I could barely stand– If navigating while being unable to open your eyes for longer than two seconds, wasn’t hard enough, I also had severe dizziness. I couldn’t stand without feeling like I was going to fall over and had to crawl to the bathroom when I had to pee because it was the only safe way to get there. Fortunately, I have to use catheters to be able to pee and if I had to I could pee in a container while sitting in bed or have someone help me. I didn’t want to do that because it’s a lot of work to clean the container and is something you only do if you have to. After minor procedures, I am usually able to move around the next day but this time I was stuck in bed for two days because I was too dizzy to move.
I got the worst anesthesia headache of my life– I am more prone to migraine and headache disorders because of Hydrocephalus and it’s not unusual for me to get a headache. I don’t think I have ever gotten a migraine from anesthesia but this time they did something different and I got the worst migraine of my life and that is saying something because I have a very high tolerance for pain. I didn’t want to take any medication to treat the migraine because I knew that the reason I had one was likely because of all the medications they gave me. If I were to take more medication to treat the migraine it would have likely not made it better but worse. Fortunately, I was able to get significant relief by hydrating myself while also using my headache hats and the migraine broke within a day or two without needing to take more medication.
My heart rate dropped lower than normal– When I have surgery, I keep a very close eyes because it is not uncommon for anesthesia to make it drop lower than it normally would. I expect my heart to drop to the forties after surgery but this time it dropped even lower than it normally would which was surprising to me because it was a short procedure and I usually only expect with longer procedures. My low heart rate probably was a contributing factor to why I was barely functioning and it didn’t help that I was nauseous and couldn’t eat normal quantiles that would help raise my heart rate. My low heart rate wasn’t something that I was super concerned about because I expect that to happen but is something you should monitor after surgery because anesthesia is hard on your body and can sometimes affect your heart rate.
When I have surgery, I expect to have some issues with anesthesia but usually it’s pretty mild especially for minor procedures when I am not out for long. I was under anesthesia for less than an hour and didn’t expect to have so many problems but you can have side effects to anesthesia even with short procedures. I expect to get nauseous after surgery and to have a lower heart rate but did not expect not to be able to function. I have had a lot of surgeries where I was given a lot more pain medication than I was and have never had an experience like this. There are risks of having side effects anytime you go under anesthesia because no one is immune to them even if you have had as many surgeries as I have had. I didn’t have any issues with the procedure itself and everything went great. The side effects I experienced with anesthesia are not the fault of my surgeon because their job is to do the procedure which they successfully did and it is not putting me to sleep. What side effects have you experienced with anesthesia? If you liked this post please leave a comment below and share it with your friends.
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