How Safe is General Anesthesia?

Procedure

To prevent patients from feeling any pain, the entire orthognathic and maxillofacial surgery must be performed under general anesthesia. During this time, an anesthesia professional will carefully monitor your heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygen level, to check on the function of your heart, lungs, and kidneys.

First, the anesthesia drug is administered through an intravenous catheter in your arm. From this moment on, you will be put to sleep until the end of surgery. Next, we will insert a catheter into the trachea, and put you on a respirator and monitor, to make sure you have enough oxygen during surgery and anesthetic gas to keep you under. At the end of the surgery, the gases are turned off, and you will begin to wake. When you can breathe on your own, the tube is taken out, and a medical professional will accompany you until you are completely awake.



How safe is general anesthesia?

With the progress we have in medical technology and medicine, general anesthesia is extremely safe for young and healthy individuals. However, we should still do our best to avoid complications, even if general anesthesia is really safe.

You should inform us the details about your health conditions and current medications，especially if you have heart, lung, kidney, or liver problems; high blood pressure; diabetes; or allergies to medicines. Make sure your doctor is aware of your pregnancy or any of the reactions to past anesthesia and surgeries.

Because rare reactions to anesthesia may run in families, let us know if your family or relatives have had any troubles with anesthesia. It is normal to experience sickness and nausea after anesthesia. However, such side effect has been greatly reduced with the help of newest anesthetic drugs, and anti-nausea and antiemetic drugs. During the general anesthesia, a breathing tube is inserted through the throat, so it may give you a sore throat like symptoms of a cold within 1~2 days after surgery.


Conclusion

Once again, general anesthesia is extremely safe for young and healthy individuals! Most complications can be avoided through good communication and physical examination.