Post Operative Fatigue

[mawm]

Assuming you had general anaesthetics then yes it's completely normal, give yourselves a few more days to get over it.

I can't understand why people make comments about subjects that they know absolutely nothing about. Repeating old wives tales does not mean that one has an understanding about anaesthesia.

 

[vyv_cox]

There is an ulterior motive here.. We had planned to set off sailing at the beginning of September but we can't do that until we have bot recovered ..

Set off anyway, but reduce your expectations. My accident 18 months ago has had a severe effect on my mobility, which since I do all the deck work means that our sailing is far less adventurous than before. We managed six weeks on the boat last September/October but only hoisted the mainsail once. This year we have been away for four months, limiting ourselves to short daysails, long periods in the marina and considerably more motoring than we would like. Despite the difficulties the rewards are significant and movement around the boat appears to be therapeutic.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I can't understand why people make comments about subjects that they know absolutely nothing about. Repeating old wives tales does not mean that one has an understanding about anaesthesia.

Many of us are citing personal experience and advice given by the medical profession.

Of course, it depends very much on the nature of the anaesthetic used. My bad experience was from opiates; short acting drugs used for day surgery will have different effects. And the advice given by my GP was for deep anaesthesia using opiates, not for the much shallower anaesthetic used in day surgery.

 

[nigelmercier]

Now I'm not sure that I neccessarily believe in everything about homeopathy...

Homeopathy has been proven to be no more effective than the placebo effect. See this excellent book on this and other similar topics: Bad Science

One time I had a General Anaesthetic, the nurse in the recovery room said it would take a couple of weeks to wear off, based on a "week per hour" rule of thumb.

 

[A1Sailor]

Many of us are citing personal experience and advice given by the medical profession.

Of course, it depends very much on the nature of the anaesthetic used. My bad experience was from opiates; short acting drugs used for day surgery will have different effects. And the advice given by my GP was for deep anaesthesia using opiates, not for the much shallower anaesthetic used in day surgery.

There is no such thing as a shallow anaesthetic. Short acting; yes. Shallow - no. One is either anaesthetised or not! There is lots of easily understood information in the public domain on the Royal College of Anaesthetists website at http://www.rcoa.ac.uk/patientinfo.
Opiate pain killers, which are not anaesthetics, do make you boke which is why they are best avoided where possible. As do inhalational anaesthetic agents, which are also best avoided where possible. TIVA (Total IntraVenous Anaesthesia) is preferred by many. Anti-emetics (anti-sickness drugs) are unfortunately only partially effective; even when three or more are combined.
Information on the RCoA website for those interested.

 

[NornaBiron]

I can't understand why people make comments about subjects that they know absolutely nothing about. Repeating old wives tales does not mean that one has an understanding about anaesthesia.

I've looked at your public profile and see that you are an anaesthetist so perhaps you would like to give us the benefit of your knowledge and experience and qualify the comment that you made about my previous post.

This is an internet forum where people go for advice from others who may have experience or knowledge of the subject matter. Most people who post (unless they are trolls) only bother if they have experience of the subject. I have experienced general anaesthesia myself and cared for thousands of people post general anaesthesia, and not just within the first 48 hours post-operatively. Being interested in my career and patients I used to look up drugs within the published literature (BNF, datasheet compendium etc) to acquaint myself with the effects and side-effects of the drugs that my patients had received. I don't profess to have anywhere near as much understanding of anaesthesia as you do, however I do have valid knowledge which is based on personal experience and listening to patients.

Comments without qualification and expansion, like yours, may make people think twice about posting on these forums as they risk ridicule. The forums and those who use them may then miss out on valuable shared knowledge and experience.

Please don't make inflammatory posts without explaining your reasoning.

 

[Tomahawk]

Dear All

Many thanks for your help.. It is good to find out that we are not abnormal in feeling quite exhausted and depressed..

The reason I asked is that although I have two very capable medics in the family, one an anaesthetist, the other a Proff of respiratory medicine... neither have been through an operation themselves.. So whilst they can tall me at length about how the drugs work.. neither of them have any experience of the actual recovery .. Lets face it a GasMan only sees the patient on the day, they put the out and bring them round, then get on with the next case.. They are not involved in post operative care and recovery.. So I would not expect medical experts to have much personal experience of what it feels like..

Now to the positive side of life.. FO is recovering fast..

 

[colind3782]

Having been through several minor ops after stupid/sports injuries, usually under GA, I've never suffered any post-op side effects, usually feeling fine quite quickly (went to the pub straight from my last op under a local). However, after my last knee op I was prescribed co-codamol for pain relief and they floored me. Perhaps it's a good idea to avoid opioids unless really required to control the pain. In my career as a Paramedic I've have heard several similar stories so, although there's no science to back up my argument, my personal experience is there.

 

[l'escargot]

I had my gall bladder out a couple of months ago and was under GA for best part of an hour. I was eating that evening, discharged the next morning and apart from a couple of afternoon naps the first week was fine. I was on co-codamol for pain relief with no problems but I had been taking it on and off for 18 months so was probably well adjusted to it. My older brother had exactly the same op and was laid low for a couple of weeks by the anaesthetic, I think it is very much an individual reaction.

 

[johnalison]

A lot can also depend upon patients' expectations. I've forgotten what the antonym for "placebo" is, something like "dyscebo", but just knowing that you have been doped will affect a number of people.

My limited experience of anaesthetics consists of a dental gassing as a child, which probably left me with half my brain missing, a late '50s wisdom under GA which left me groggy and nauseated for about 24 hours, a lumbar epidural when I had better things to worry about and a bladder op when I woke up as bright as a button and keen to watch Countdown before phoning home.

My experience of opiates was mainly several weeks on morphine, when I discovered that I could manage cryptic crosswords as well as usual but was completely unable to do number puzzles.

 

[mawm]

I've looked at your public profile and see that you are an anaesthetist so perhaps you would like to give us the benefit of your knowledge and experience and qualify the comment that you made about my previous post.

This is an internet forum where people go for advice from others who may have experience or knowledge of the subject matter. Most people who post (unless they are trolls) only bother if they have experience of the subject. I have experienced general anaesthesia myself and cared for thousands of people post general anaesthesia, and not just within the first 48 hours post-operatively. Being interested in my career and patients I used to look up drugs within the published literature (BNF, datasheet compendium etc) to acquaint myself with the effects and side-effects of the drugs that my patients had received. I don't profess to have anywhere near as much understanding of anaesthesia as you do, however I do have valid knowledge which is based on personal experience and listening to patients.

Comments without qualification and expansion, like yours, may make people think twice about posting on these forums as they risk ridicule. The forums and those who use them may then miss out on valuable shared knowledge and experience.

Please don't make inflammatory posts without explaining your reasoning.

I'm not interested in getting into a mudslinging match.

The OP commented that he and his wife had both had minor surgeries done and were feeling tired. Your response was to immediately blame it on the anaesthetic.

Firstly, modern volatile and IV anaesthetic agents are eliminated very quickly unlike the barbiturates and older volatile agents used about 25 years ago. Secondly, following trauma, and yes surgery is trauma, the body has a hormonal response that does make one feel very flat. Then, as pointed out by others, the analgesics prescribed, especially the opiods, do make one feel rather nasty. Also recent studies have shown that there is statistically no difference in post operative cognitive dysfunction between patients who have had general anaesthesia from those that have had neuraxial anaesthesia. Even hospitalisation without surgery has an immense impact on patients.

There are just too many confounding issues following hospitalisation and surgery to put the blame on anaesthesia which unfortunately you did. As you said people come to the forum for advice and yours was uninformed.

 

[Tomahawk]

Gentlemen Please

Calm down on please..(MAWM NornaBiron) This is not the Lounge where a fair bit of mud slinging is part of the entertainment..

I have learned a lot from everyone.. (Including the bit about post operative Trauma and hormone response).. for which I am very grateful....

Others have also found out some things by reading this thread, which is the value of this Forum ..

 

[BAtoo]

I think there is a lot of personal variation in recovery from surgery/anaesthesia..
I think I'm pretty good at recovery and my experiences are:-
Local Anaesthetic for minor superficial masses - no after effects.
GA for vasectomy (I'm a wimp) - laying concrete path the next day.
Short GA (might have been rhoypnil) for knee keyhole surgery - slightly groggy for under 24 hours.
Several gastric endoscopies using rhohypnil - back to work the next day.
Longer GA for open dislocated knee - quite tired for 2-3 days (slept a lot more than normal but some I suspect was catching up as I was not sleeping too well before the accident)

 

[Victoria Sponge]

I worked as a staff nurse in theatres, recovery, the wards and the day surgery unit. I also worked on the district caring for people at home post-operatively.

I believe the most important factor to consider during a person's recovery from surgery is that, everyone is different. We had a mantra which we quoted daily, which was 'pain is whatever the patient says it is.' This philosophy was applied to all aspects of patient care, post-operatively.

 

[NornaBiron]

I'm not interested in getting into a mudslinging match.

The OP commented that he and his wife had both had minor surgeries done and were feeling tired. Your response was to immediately blame it on the anaesthetic.

Firstly, modern volatile and IV anaesthetic agents are eliminated very quickly unlike the barbiturates and older volatile agents used about 25 years ago. Secondly, following trauma, and yes surgery is trauma, the body has a hormonal response that does make one feel very flat. Then, as pointed out by others, the analgesics prescribed, especially the opiods, do make one feel rather nasty. Also recent studies have shown that there is statistically no difference in post operative cognitive dysfunction between patients who have had general anaesthesia from those that have had neuraxial anaesthesia. Even hospitalisation without surgery has an immense impact on patients.

There are just too many confounding issues following hospitalisation and surgery to put the blame on anaesthesia which unfortunately you did. As you said people come to the forum for advice and yours was uninformed.

I'm not interested in mudslinging either.

Thank you for explaining your reasoning behind your comment, we are now all much better informed.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I'm not interested in getting into a mudslinging match.

The OP commented that he and his wife had both had minor surgeries done and were feeling tired. Your response was to immediately blame it on the anaesthetic.

Firstly, modern volatile and IV anaesthetic agents are eliminated very quickly unlike the barbiturates and older volatile agents used about 25 years ago. Secondly, following trauma, and yes surgery is trauma, the body has a hormonal response that does make one feel very flat. Then, as pointed out by others, the analgesics prescribed, especially the opiods, do make one feel rather nasty. Also recent studies have shown that there is statistically no difference in post operative cognitive dysfunction between patients who have had general anaesthesia from those that have had neuraxial anaesthesia. Even hospitalisation without surgery has an immense impact on patients.

There are just too many confounding issues following hospitalisation and surgery to put the blame on anaesthesia which unfortunately you did. As you said people come to the forum for advice and yours was uninformed.

Thank you. The experience I recounted of anaesthesia for orthopaedic surgery was 24 years ago, so I guess they used the older agents you mention. I am glad things have improved!

 

[Koeketiene]

Both First officer and myself have recently undergone small surgical operations for various problems..

After the op both of us have felt completely exhausted and fatigued.. So much so that it has been difficult to get out of bed for more than a few hours at a time.. yet the operations were quite quick and very localised..

Is this normal? Have other folks experienced similar post operation fatigue?

There is an ulterior motive here.. We had planned to set off sailing at the beginning of September but we can't do that until we have bot recovered ..

After my last major op (9 hours - general - hip/pelvis/spine) I felt a bit under the weather too.
After two weeks got the news that unless I was back at work in 6 weeks time I would be 'let go' on a disability.
Six weeks later I was still on crutches and doped to the gills, but I was back at work.

IMO, you need something to focus the mind: a target to aim for.
Assuming you're going away long-term, why not cancel your berthing contract from the end of this month?
That should be an incentive to get going.