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Local anesthesia with conscious sedation surgery experience
Now I’ve had my surgery with local anesthesia and conscious sedation I’m going to post the thread I wanted to read going into it. Right inguinal hernia, open repair with LA and Midazolam for sedation. Before the OP I discussed the sedation with the surgeon who said the goal is to put you in a state where you can sleep if you want to. From what I read online usually people fall asleep or likely not remember the surgery/remember only fragments. My experience as someone with a LOT of health anxiety going into it was that I was “calm” on the surface but terrified lying down in the operating theatre. I chatted with the staff and they injected the Midazolam before administering the LA. The sensation of the drug was not overwhelming or mind altering at all for me. It did not make me feel tired at all and I did not stop talking at all during the operation but as soon as it hit me, the fear disappeared and it literally just felt like a bit of happiness was going into that IV line. So I asked for it again (for fun) then again but on the 3rd time they said something of the sort that any more came with strings and before they finished I stopped and said don’t worry about it, I don’t know if that was breathing tube territory but I didn’t feel tired or slow at all, just happy, chatty and no fear. The procedure involved some pain at time but it was only short lasting and tolerable followed by fentanyl being injected to immediately stop the pain. For me personally I had two shots of Fentanyl and it removed the pain and came with no other side effects I could sense. Overall the operation was comfortable and if I was having hernia repair again I’d definitely want it done the same way. I could not find for the life of me anyone else post of their experience of this so I hope this helps anyone considering this path. To stress how bad my health anxiety is and that this sedation was effective, before being send home from the recovery room. My heart rate was about 120 laying down resting just from the stress of the day and the fact that a nurse approaching and reading the HR monitor will increase it further. My normal resting HR is under 80.
Edit: As it might not be clear the sedation I received did not impact my memory of the operation at all I recall the entire procedure as if I had no sedation but I never had a problem with this and it wasn’t actually unpleasant either. I believe I react this way to the sedation because of my high anxiety levels even though I didn’t feel anxious during the procedure.-
This discussion was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by
Scarletville.
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This discussion was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by
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12 Replies
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Thank you so much for sharing this on the forum. That’s super helpful . Hope the healing goes well.
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Good to hear it’s working out for Scarlettville. Can I ask which German surgeon were you going to go to? I think from memory it was the covid situation that stopped your German operation?
I’m asking as I’ve emailed a German surgeon, twice, and had no replies.
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Hello Scarletville. I am posting the link to the one where you gave the info about your surgeon here, below, just to make it easier to find.
I noticed that you fell back on recurrence rate as a factor in choosing a surgeon. Even though this forum is full of chronic pain stories and even the surgeons agree that chronic pain is the number one issue with hernia repair today.
No offense intended, I just found it interesting. Recurrence rate is used to distract from the chronic pain issue, I think. It’s a bit disingenuous for a knowledgeable surgeon today to talk about it without also talking about chronic pain.
https://herniatalk.com/forums/topic/shouldice-vs-kang-surgery-experience/#post-30069
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One of the hospitals Martin Kurzer I believe is associated with has some poor reviews. It put me off contacting them about hernia repairs. Maybe not the man himself’s fault. But terminating a call from a patient isn’t good. That it’s a paid for discussion makes it worse!
The cost of a private (telephone) consultation is quite horrific. I’ve been quoted as high as £290!
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Could you add the details of your surgery? The type of repair and the materials used? Even in open repair there are many many variations.
I started a Topic on the subject long ago, but it is pretty empty.
https://herniatalk.com/forums/topic/successful-good-mesh-stories/
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This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Good intentions.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by
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Thanks for the details. Going from your previous posts, was this with a Desarda repair done in Germany?
How is your recovery so far?
Thanks
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this is very interesting and helpful. thanks for sharing. if i could go back in time, i would have done an open tissue repair for my hernia under these circumstances.
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Dr. Ralph Lorenz, I hope this reply isn’t too late. He will most definitely get back in touch with you if you contact him. I also had difficulties getting replies from other surgeons.
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Late reply but better than never. I didn’t fall back on recurrence rate, the surgeon I found in Germany had a much lower recurrence rate with tissue repair. I simply put more emphasis on getting the repair done in a timely manner. I’m still doing really well, everything doesn’t feel completely perfect yet but feeling pretty damn good so I’m glad things have so far worked out well for me.
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Ah I think that’s “The British Hernia Centre” with the bad reputation. Their prices are truly insanity, I’ve seen higher no where else, it’s cheaper to fly to South Korea for surgery even including the hotel stay! This wasn’t strictly a paid phone consultation though, I had a consultation with him in London and this was the follow up phone call which is part of that, for things such as booking in the surgery and final questions. But yeah his consultation cost a lot and he treated me like that, in comparison in Scunthorpe I had same day consultation plus surgery and they offered me surgery within 3 days of my phone call.
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This one an open mesh repair in the UK because covid cancelled my operation in Germany with no known date when I could book in again. This was made even more difficult by the fact Lorenz is very highly sought after and has a long wait list. I just couldn’t wait any longer.
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So this is probably going to enrage you as much as it did me but basically I didn’t ask much because of my previous experience with a surgeon. I spoke with Martin Kurzer regarding a tissue repair last year and after my consultation on a follow up phone call he literally hung up on me for asking questions regarding how he was going to do the surgery. After that and another surgery that fell through due to covid and desperately wanting to just get my life started again I resigned to just asking the most basic questions, will you use a flat piece of mesh (yes) and what is the material (prolene). This surgeon may have been absolutely fine with detailed questions but this entire experience has been the most frustrating and drawn out of my life. It’s ridiculous you can pay like £200 for a consultation and a surgeon hang up and refuse to operate on you for confirming details of the surgery he will perform. His basis seemed to be he thought I’d hound him post surgery with questions and issues. I’ve literally not contacted my mesh repair surgeon once post surgery and couldn’t be happier with the results so far.
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