[pineal]

The way it usually works is that we have anesthesia put the patient entirely to sleep to start and then we wake them for the sensitive part of the case when we need to perform stimulation and cognitive testing. We use local anesthetic like lidocaine and marcaine on the scalp while opening to minimize pain when temporarily awake. Then the patient goes back to sleep for closing. It’s a tough balance for the anesthesiologists to maintain —- they are as critical to the procedure as the neurosurgeon is.

[noduerme]

The couple of times I've woken up from anaesthesia, I was apparently pretty rambly and nonsensical for awhile. I wonder if I'd be able to play piano like that. To some extent, playing is automatic, sub-verbal for me. Maybe it would come out great and I just wouldn't remember it, but... how do you gauge the performance given that they're still coming out of anaesthesia?

While I'm asking, there's a question that's been driving me crazy since a recent colonoscopy where I was sedated with fentanyl and (? something like diazepam). I think I remember being awake and remembering most of the procedure immediately afterwards, but within about an hour I couldn't remember anything except one moment when I was in pain and shouting that I was going to explode, as a nurse put another ampule in the drip line. What's bugging me is, was I really experiencing pain like that and aware the whole time, and the drugs just erased my memory of it afterwards? Or was that just a breakthrough moment in an otherwise uneventful procedure where I felt relatively little?

[quercusa]

In the US, I think propofol has largely replaced diazepam for colonoscopies. Whether that's what you had, this sounds like your experience:

>Subclinical doses of propofol produce anterograde amnesia, characterized by an early failure of memory consolidation.[0]

I'm going to talk to the doctor for my next one about skipping the drugs. I've heard it's unpleasnat but not too painful.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000709121...

[1] https://academic.oup.com/bja/article/96/3/289/325896

[noduerme]

Propofol would be for heavy sedation and would require an anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist to be present. My insurance didn't cover that. I checked, and what I got was Versed (midazolam) + fentanyl.

At least in my prior experience with benzodiazepines like Xanax or lorazepam, they didn't cause any amnesia. I've never had fentanyl or any synthetic opioid besides during this procedure, so maybe that was what caused the amnesia. Or maybe there was no amnesia, and I was just so stoned from the combination that I was asleep and didn't really experience much except when some pain woke me up... I guess that's what I'm wondering.