[ano-ther]

Didn’t realise caffeine was used IV in anesthesia. Apparently it speeds up awakening (which makes sense to me as a non-medic). https://theanesthesiaconsultant.com/2019/06/18/intravenous-c...

But the story in OP is that the patient received caffeine IV at the beginning of the surgery (inducing severe anxiety).

Does anyone know why you would do this?

[Havoc]

I know people use a similar strategy for napping. Some people (not me) can fall asleep very fast so they down a coffee and go sleep for a nap...and then wake up super fresh 30 mins later

[scns]

Combined the effect is stronger than each on its own. Caffeine takes ~15 minutes to work. Sadly no source handy but i once read that naps are most effective below 15 minutes. Above it is possible to enter deeper sleep states and wake up worse than before.

[mmsnberbar66]

So when people talk about napping like this, do they ever actually "fall asleep"? I cannot possibly imagine falling asleep in 15m in the middle of my work day or whatever.

[scns]

I don't fall asleep. But just lying in bed, eyes closed, sleepmask on and low Binaural Beats on the ears helps me when i feel a slump. When i set a timer to 12 minutes i usually feel the urge to get up after roughly ten minutes.

[immanentize]

I've done this sort of caffeinated nap when I chugged a cup of coffee and passed out. It feels as bad as it sounds but it was effective.

[kilroy123]

I had caffeine in an IV before. I was going under for surgery, and the doctor asked are you a coffee drinker? I told him oh yes, I'm a huge coffee drinker.

When I woke up from the surgery, it was pretty weird. I was wide awake and alert very quickly. Never got a caffeine withdraw headache. It was awesome.

[flangola7]

Epinephrine increases the strength of painkillers. That's why there's caffeine in Excedrin.

[freedomben]

I thought the caffeine was there to restrict/narrow blood vessels which usually helps with migraines. Multi-purpose maybe?

[cjbgkagh]

AFAIK, I think it depends on where in the body, vasoconstriction in the head vasodilation for the rest of the body.

[etskinner]

What does epinephrine have to do with caffeine?

[cloudwalk9]

Caffeine directly kickstarts the adrenal glands

[manmal]

Maybe for vasoconstriction.

[IIAOPSW]

Maybe someone put the wrong IV in?