fazedx

Was your mom still alive when the paramedics came? If not, was she responsive?

If you were awake, and feeling everything, wouldn't your blood pressure and heart rate be through the roof? I imagine it would be incredibly stressful and fearful, causing your bp to skyrocket, not just be a little higher than usual?

There are lots of different kinds of anesthetics. For general anesthesia, nitrious oxide is often used to start induction and then sevoflurane is added. Isoflurane is often used as well, but lasts longer in your system. Sevoflurane is also a lot more expensive than isoflurane. Both of these gases cause amnesia, analgesia, loss of consciousness. They also cause a lot of nausea after, so there really is no good reason to abuse these drugs. You'd just knock yourself out, and then wake up feeling shitty and wanting to throw up. (Desflurane and halothane are used less and less now. Xenon is being looked at as an alternative.)

Propfol is an injection general anesthetic that will do all of the things sevoflurane will do, but it is harder to gauge how long someone will be under anesthesia. It is also a sedative. There really is no point to abusing propfol, for the same reasons mentioned above. Local anesthetics like lidocaine or bupivicaine don't really need an explanation. There isn't a point in abusing them either.

Muscle relaxants/paralytics are succinylcholine (depolarizing) and rocoruonium (non-depolarizing). These will stop all of your muscles. If you inject yourself with this, you will die without proper ventilation (someone breathing for you)

The drugs that CAN be abused are ketamine, and opiods. Ketamine is rarely used, except for in cases where children are uncooperative. (I work in pediatric anesthesiology). We don't like to strap children down to induce, since it can create fear of hospitals and doctors, and is just not a pleasant experience for anyone. Imagine having to hold down a little kid and forcing him to breathe in gases through a mask, as he cries and screams "I can't breathe" and everyone is just standing over him. Scary. Protocol is to obtain consent from the parent and to do a quick injection of ketamine and atropine. We just stick him and inject when he's not looking, and in a minute, he's out. Won't remember a thing. We may also use midazolam sometimes before surgery, but then you have to plan ahead since it takes about 20 minutes for it to kick and and make the kids loopy and sedated. These CAN be abused, but the reasons to are very low. Ketamine is the only substance so far that has a big abuse potential.

Opiods most commonly used are fentanyl and dilaudid. Obviously these have high abuse risks, and are VERY carefully monitored. All doses are checked out, and any unused doses are checked back in and taken by pharmacology to be sorted out. Your name, as well as the patients name, is always attached to the dose you retrieve, so it is very hard to steal a drug without a paper trail leading back to you. EVERYTHING in surgery is documented, from the time the patient enters the room, to the time the patient is wheeled out.

Have to go now, feel free to ask more questions, sorry for hijacking your thread OP!