Commonly Asked Anesthesia Questions

If you have had a local anaesthetic, it should take around an hour to completely wear off. Sedation can take up to 24 hours to completely wear off, and it is recommended that you do not drive or operate heavy machinery, so it is important to organize alternative transport home. Most people are awake just a few moments after the procedure. Patients will commonly have a conversation with the endoscopist before leaving. Even though you feel fully awake it is important to remember you are may not be and to please wait 24 hours before driving a car.

Monitored anesthesia care (MAC) means that an anesthesia specialist will care for you during your surgery. He or she will make sure that you get only the level of anesthesia you need to prevent pain for your specific case. MAC can be used instead of giving general or regional anesthesia. MAC anesthesia is commonly used for endoscopy procedures and in outpatient settings. Meaning non OR or hospital based settings.

Propofol injection is used to help you relax or sleep before and during surgery or other medical procedures. This medicine is an anesthetic and a sedative. Propofol is among the most commonly used agents for anesthesia during a colonoscopy procedure. When the medication is administered by an anesthesia professional the drug has an excellent safety profile. This technique is commonly referred to as Monitored anesthesia care or MAC.

Patients who received propofol for there medical procedure experienced less pain post-operatively. Patient satisfaction, as a relevant patient-reported outcome measure, was significantly in favour of propofol as suggested by a higher number of satisfied patients as well as better satisfaction scores.

General anesthesia refers to patients that are completely asleep and have an endotracheal tube down the throat. MAC anesthesia (Monitored Anesthesia Care) refers to patients that may or may not completely asleep (various levels of sedation) and were not intubated, the are often spontaneously breathing while being monitored and on oxygen.

MAC may be considered safer than that of general anesthesia in that less drugs are typically administered. However, it depends on the depth of sedation required for the procedure.