Can anesthesia cause long term side effects?

Ah, anesthesia. The wonderful drug that allows you to have surgery without feeling a thing. It’s like magic! Speaking of magic, did you know that Harry Potter also needed anesthesia when he had his arm bones magically regrown? True story.

But wait… could this magical drug actually cause long-term side effects? Let’s dive into the depths of science and find out.

What is Anesthesia?

First things first, we need to understand what exactly anesthesia is. Anesthesia is a medical treatment that involves using drugs to prevent patients from feeling pain during surgery or other procedures. There are several types of anesthesia, including local anesthesia (which numbs just one small area), regional anesthesia (which numbs larger areas such as an entire limb), and general anesthesia (which puts the patient completely to sleep).

Short-Term Side Effects

Let’s start with the short-term side effects because they’re less scary than long-term ones.

  • Nausea: Feeling queasy after surgery isn’t uncommon.
  • Confusion: Have you ever woken up groggy after a nap? Now imagine being put under for several hours.
  • Memory loss: Don’t worry; it’s typically temporary.
  • Sore throat: This can happen if a breathing tube was necessary during your procedure.

These are all normal occurrences after receiving general anesthetics. Talk to your doctor if any symptoms last longer than expectedVocabulary Note:.

Long-Term Side Effects Are Rare

Take a deep breath – there isn’t much evidence that proves general anaesthetic causes severe long term side effects in most people who get them(1). However, like everything else in life there is always somewhat of risk involved:

Dementia Risk?!

Researchers noticed some correlation between dementia rates and exposure to repeated use of general anaesthetics only in extreme cases where someone has had more than 5 surgeries with general anaesthesia or prolonged exposure while being treated for a challenging medical condition(2).

This risk may be connected to changes in amyloid-beta protein. Every brain creates this type of protein, but the accumulation of too much is believed to lead to Alzheimer’s Disease (3). However, there are challenges when it comes to determining whether the accumulation of this protein leads directly to dementia because other factors also contribute.

We suppose you could say repeated doses of anaesthetic may increase your risk factor but most people only need one surgery their whole life – so this isn’t an incredible concern since that doesn’t require multiple rounds of general anesthesia.

Nerve Injury

It’s no secret that needles can cause pain and even damage nerves if they aren’t administered correctly; however, it’s very uncommon. Keep in mind that nerve injury can happen due to any number of reasons during surgery—not just administration- and typically occurs on accident just like rupturing a blood vessel(REMINDER: don’t Google if you’re eating right now).

Physiology and Metabolism Factors

Enzymes, Proteins & various genetic factors referred collectively as Pharmacogenetics dictate how our bodies process each drug differently. In extremely rare cases – when these genetics play together poorly-, someone may encounter long-term side effects from anesthesia such as Headaches or Uncontrollable shaking/trembling after waking up post-op[]. Only time will tell what kind/ combination works best depending on the patient’s individual chemical makeup.

There are some basic steps we think might reduce your likelihoods of having intense side-effects:

1) Book with experienced professionals,
2) Discuss past experiences and allergies with doctors
3) keep track record per doctor appointments/surgeries (for consistency purposes).
4) Is COVID at stake? That’ll probably depend on vaccination efforts etc., which depend mostly on how aggressive the virus evolves…

In general, the chances are quite low for suffering from intense anesthetic-related long term side effects unless considering extreme cases with endless procedures. And if you needed several surgeries that entail the use of general anesthesia or have challenging medical conditions, make sure to track your symptoms after surgery and consult your doctor immediately if anything seems amiss.

Happy (healthy) snoozing!

Sources:
1.National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4966739/
2.The Annals of The Royal College Of Surgery | https://publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1308/rcsbull.2020.046#:~:text=Pronger%20et%20al.- ,reported%20that,receiving%2015%E2%80%9324&text=months).
3.Alzheimer’s & Dementia 14(7):873 #anesthesiaandmemoryloss,Wiley Online Library Publishers| doi.org//adn336#highbloodpressure

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