Pregnancy will make people stupid for three years. Anesthesia: I won’t take the blame for this!

People who eat grains and cereals are bound to get sick and injured. If they need surgery to solve their illness, most people rely on anesthetics. After all, not everyone has the courage of Guan Erye scraping bones to heal injuries. From small things like tooth extraction to big things like "opening the intestines and stomach", today's surgeries cannot be separated from the steps of local anesthesia or general anesthesia before surgery. However, when many people hear about anesthesia, their reaction is - love and fear! They think that although it will not hurt, taking too much anesthesia will make them stupid and hurt their brains. Anesthesia is the cause of three years of stupidity after one pregnancy. What is the truth? Today, I will simply share with you a few things about anesthesia.

1. Different anesthesia methods

According to legend, Hua Tuo invented Ma Fei San during the Eastern Han Dynasty, which is a traditional Chinese medicine anesthetic that can be used in surgical operations. Hua Tuo was also the first doctor in China to use anesthetics. Unfortunately, the prescription of Ma Fei San has been lost. Modern anesthesia began in the 19th century and has continued to this day. After continuous attempts and updates, people finally found a stable anesthetic with few side effects.

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Nowadays, the anesthetics used clinically are roughly divided into local anesthetics and general anesthetics according to the range of action. Local anesthetics are a class of drugs used for local anesthesia. They block the conduction of nerve signals to cause loss of sensation in specific parts, but do not affect the patient's consciousness. Common local anesthetics include lidocaine, procaine, etc. According to the needs of the operation, there are several different ways of local anesthesia. For example, for minor operations such as tooth extraction, anesthetics will be injected directly near the operation site; and now obstetrics are more and more common painless delivery, which will use spinal anesthesia. The doctor will inject local anesthetics into the spine to anesthetize the lower body and keep the patient awake. In addition to these, there are many other methods such as nerve blocks (anesthetizing only the arms and other parts). Doctors will choose appropriate local anesthesia techniques based on the type of surgery, patient health status and other factors.

General anesthesia is a type of anesthesia that uses anesthetic drugs to make the patient completely unconscious, without pain or awareness. Medical professionals usually choose the appropriate general anesthesia drug based on the type of surgery, the patient's condition, and the depth of anesthesia required. The main goal of general anesthesia is to ensure that the patient feels no pain during surgery and remains unconscious so that the surgery can be performed. Once the surgery is completed, the anesthetic drugs will be gradually stopped and the patient will wake up. General anesthesia is generally divided into inhalation and intravenous injection. Inhalation anesthesia commonly uses sevoflurane and isoflurane; intravenous injection generally uses drugs such as propofol.

2. Can the dosage of anesthetic be determined by one’s alcohol tolerance?

After determining the anesthesia method, the next step is to determine the anesthesia dosage. At this time, someone asked a question like this: Do people who can drink more need a larger dose of anesthesia? You should know that before the operation, the doctor will talk to the patient or his family and explain the risks of the operation, including anesthesia, but will never ask whether the patient can drink a lot, and will never determine the dosage of the drug based on the amount of alcohol consumed.

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Although alcohol is metabolized through the liver like some anesthetics, the alcohol dehydrogenase and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase required to metabolize alcohol have nothing to do with the metabolic process of anesthetics. For example, propofol is excreted and metabolized through bile; sevoflurane is inhaled into the patient's body through the respiratory system and then excreted through the respiratory system without being metabolized by the liver. The factors that are actually used to determine the anesthetic dose are the patient's weight, health status (liver and kidney function, cardiopulmonary function), type of surgery, and expected duration, rather than their drinking habits.

3. Will it still hurt after local anesthesia?

After the anesthetic dose is determined, the local anesthesia patients will be injected with the drug and wait for it to take effect. At this time, those who have undergone local anesthesia surgery will definitely remember that the area of ​​local anesthesia still has feelings, not no feelings at all, such as touch, and even a little pain. The reasons may be as follows:

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Local differences: Different parts of the body may have different sensitivities to local anesthetics, and some areas may be more difficult to anesthetize. For example, the skin and mucous membranes may be easier to anesthetize, while deeper tissues may require more local anesthetic to achieve effective anesthesia.

Type of anesthetic: Different types of local anesthetics have different properties, and some may be better suited for anesthetizing certain areas of the body.

Individual differences: Individual responses to local anesthetics may vary. Some people have a higher tolerance, while others may feel the effects of local anesthetics more easily.

Depth of anesthesia: The depth of anesthesia depends on the local anesthetic used and its dose. Sometimes, in order to achieve adequate depth of anesthesia, a higher dose may be needed, which will make the disappearance of various sensations more obvious, but will also increase the potential risks of drug use.

4. Will you dream after general anesthesia?

When you are under general anesthesia, the doctor will put on a mask and you will fall asleep in less than ten seconds. When you wake up, you will find that the operation is over. Your brain is dizzy and you may even feel like you have had a dream. So, do we really dream when we are under general anesthesia?

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First, let's take a look at how dreams are produced: Dreams usually occur during the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage. REM sleep is the most active period of dreams. During this sleep stage, brain activity is similar to the waking state. The eyeballs move rapidly under the eyelids, breathing and heart rate increase, and muscles relax. In addition, neurotransmitters, memory emotions, and even subconscious factors are involved in the formation of dreams. It can be seen that the entire brain is very active when dreaming, and anesthetics will inhibit the patient's brain activity, including the generation of dreams. Patients will enter a deep coma during general anesthesia, without consciousness and perception, so they will not dream during surgery.

However, when the effect of the anesthetic gradually wears off and the patient wakes up from general anesthesia, he or she may experience some confusion or hallucinations, but this is different from ordinary dreams. These confusions or hallucinations may be due to the fact that the effect of the anesthetic has not completely subsided, or the inability to adapt to the environment when waking up, so some people will regard this process of gradual recovery of consciousness as a dream.

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5. Pregnancy will make people stupid for three years. Is it all the anesthesia’s fault?

Wait, it seems that I just said that anesthetics will inhibit the patient's brain activity. So, are the anesthetics used during childbirth the culprit of "one pregnancy makes the mother stupid for three years"? The answer is obviously no. The reason is obvious: although anesthetics are used during childbirth to relieve the pain of the mother, in most cases, general anesthesia is not used, but local anesthesia (including caesarean section, which generally uses spinal anesthesia to make the mother lose sensation in the lower body during childbirth), that is, the person is still awake, but it will feel less painful. Considering the inhibitory effect of general anesthetics on breathing and heartbeat and the impact on newborns, it is not dared to be used at the dangerous moment of childbirth. The entire childbirth process also requires the mother's efforts and persistence. If there is a dangerous situation, it is also necessary to communicate with the mother in time. Therefore, considering various aspects, general anesthesia is not the first choice. Since it is not general anesthesia, the person is awake, so how can the anesthetic make the pregnant woman stupid? Therefore, the traditional saying "one pregnancy makes the mother stupid for three years" is not a scientifically accurate description, but just a folk view.

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During pregnancy, some women may experience changes in hormone levels, mood swings, and physical discomfort, all of which may cause them to feel less agile or less resourceful than usual in some aspects. After childbirth, new mothers may feel particularly tired and confused due to insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, parenting pressure, etc., and show some slowness, making people feel as if she has become "stupid". But these changes are usually temporary, and every woman will have different experiences and feelings. At this time, you need more understanding and care from your family and friends around you. Having said so much, I believe everyone has some understanding of anesthetics and anesthesia. Thanks to the emergence of anesthetics, patients can be free from the pain of the disease. From the selection of anesthetics, to the detection of the anesthesia process, to the awakening after the operation, doctors will closely monitor the patient's condition to minimize the pain and reduce the side effects to the human body as much as possible.

Source: Chongqing Science and Technology Museum

Author: Mouse experimenter, medical science writer

Review experts: Huang He, Li Chunli, Xu Xiaoping

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