Waking up during surgery isn’t ideal but is more likely for redheads

I don’t like going to the dentist. I have this dread that during the drilling process he will hit a nerve and send me through the ceiling. I suspect many people of my vintage harbour the same fear based on difficult experiences we had in the 1960’s when dentistry was practised at a different level to what we know today.

It’s an irrational fear though because in all the years I’ve sat in a dentist’s chair since then, none has ever hit a nerve which is perfectly understandable given their skill and the availability of anaesthetic, but my brain is hotwired to expect a dose of agony as soon as I open my mouth.

The process involved in an extraction, or a filling is minor compared to invasive surgery on the body like, a heart bypass, a transplant or even removing an appendix. Yet, we are generally more relaxed entering an operating theatre than we are a dental surgery. Confident at least that we won’t feel any pain until the surgery is over.

The only thing that concerns me prior to surgery is that I get the right dose of anaesthetic. I don’t fancy the idea of waking up half-way through and it seems I’m not alone in that. Apparently topping the list of preoperative anxieties among patients is the fear that they won’t be anesthetized enough, waking up mid-surgery with their bodies open, unable to move and feeling everything.

But that fear may not be so irrational after all because medicaldaily.com reported back in 2014 that renditions of these incidents, called anaesthesia awareness, occur in about 300 people per year in the UK and Ireland.

Researchers from the UK’s Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Association of Anaesthetists looked into occurrences throughout the UK and Ireland. They found that one out of every 19,000 operations — other estimates put that number at one in 1,000 — resulted in an incidence of anaesthesia awareness of the Royal United Hospital, according to the BBC.

In those cases, patients were given general anaesthesia consisting of a concoction of various drugs and anaesthesia awareness occurred when one of the drugs wasn’t administered in as strong a dose as the others. Fortunately, the majority of patients only awoke for a brief period of time, either before surgery or once it was completed.

The Guardian published an article about the experiences of some of those who woke up during a procedure and Anne Lord still remembers vividly her experience under anaesthetic. She was rushed to Llandough hospital in Cardiff for an operation to remove a growth in her colon 20 years ago.

She woke up and heard shouting. “I told whoever was screaming to shut up and was told that I was the person screaming,” said Lord. “I had managed to get my foot out of the stirrups and kicked the surgeon in the chest and he went flying across the room on his wheeled stool.

I thought I was dreaming but apparently not. I had already had three times the normal amount of anaesthetic. I had counted to 10 on the first two injections and to nine on the last. It is a family thing as my late mother was resistant and one of my sons is also.”

Lord did not suffer any long-term psychological damage but rather revels in the anecdote which has become a dinner party staple over the years. She is not alone in being conscious while undergoing surgery.

James Wheatley, 34, did not feel pain when he was having his wisdom teeth removed under general anaesthetic, but was acutely aware of strong sensations. “At some point during the operation I became aware and could feel the movements of the surgeon in my mouth,” he said.

“There was no pain, but I could hear and feel the drilling, sawing and cracking reverberating through my skull as if a very powerful and noisy electric toothbrush was in direct contact with my bones.”

“I did manage to start groaning and I think I moved my head a little. I heard someone say ‘OK, we’ll give you some more medicine’ and then I was out again for the remainder of the operation.”

Another guy told of his experience in the mid-’90s. “I woke up during knee surgery. Like, just fully snapped awake and sat up. All of these wide-eyed masked faces just turned and stared at me. I looked down at my clamped open leg, looked at one of the masked faces that everyone seemed to be deferring to, and said, ‘I don’t think I want to be awake for this.’ They put me back under.”

Some redheaded patients have claimed to have woken up during medical procedures because they reckon redheads need more anaesthetic than other people. Howstuffworks reported that a 2002 study conducted by researchers at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, proved what anaesthesiologists have believed for some time, that redheads are more difficult to knock out.

Researchers chose 20 test subjects, all women aged 19 to 40. Ten were redheads and ten were brunettes. The researchers chose only women to cut out any possibility of gender playing a role in the study.

All 20 women were given desflurane, a common gas anaesthesia. After the anaesthesia took effect, the researchers gave each woman electric shocks, using a voltage which a conscious person would have found “intolerable.” If the subject could feel the pain, the researchers increased the dosage of desflurane and continued to administer shocks until they got no response.

The researchers’ findings showed that redheads do require more anaesthesia. In fact, they need an average of 20 percent more. So, there you have it. We always knew they had a reputation for being fiery, but we now know that gingers are more difficult to pacify as well.