Anaesthesia FAQ

General anaesthesia switches off not only consciousness and the perception of pain but also the protective reflexes (e.g. the swallowing and cough reflexes).
There is therefore a risk that stomach contents may enter the throat, be inhaled and thus cause life-threatening pneumonia. Fasting before the operation should ensure that the stomach is empty at the time of surgery. This minimises the risk of stomach contents entering the throat.

During the operation, your anaesthetist continuously monitors your vital functions (blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation) and the depth of anaesthesia, which nowadays can be adjusted very precisely to the needs of each individual patient. Analysis of brain waves by means of EEG allows optimal control.
So you need not worry about waking up during the operation.

Pain after an operation cannot be avoided completely, but nowadays it can be limited to a tolerable level. To this end, painkillers are already administered during anaesthesia; they continue to work after the operation and thus allow you to remain largely pain-free. Subsequently, you will receive individualised pain medication tailored to your subjective perception of pain and to the surgical procedure. In addition, for some procedures it is possible to anaesthetise individual nerves or entire regions of the body via so-called "pain catheters", so that you no longer feel any pain at all at the site of the operation.

Even though anaesthesia is safer today than ever before, problems can occur. Nobody can give you a guarantee that nothing will happen, but the risk is extremely low.

The modern medicines used today cause nausea much less often than in the past. In addition, every patient routinely receives two medicines (antiemetics) during the operation, which are intended to prevent postoperative nausea as far as possible. Nevertheless, we unfortunately cannot promise that you will wake up without nausea.
Because the occurrence of nausea depends not only on the type of operation performed but also on your personal predisposition (e.g. travel sickness), you should tell your anaesthetist about this during the pre-anaesthetic consultation, so that preventive measures can be taken if a predisposition is known.

You may drink in small sips relatively soon after the anaesthetic, but to avoid nausea or vomiting you should be careful about eating solid food immediately after the procedure.
After operations on the abdominal organs, especially the bowel, more time is usually needed for recovery.

Just a few minutes after the end of the operation, you will be awake enough to communicate with us.
However, it often takes at least one hour, and not infrequently several hours, until you are awake enough for activities such as reading, watching television and the like.