Anaesthesia for your surgery

There are different ways of delivering anaesthesia for you during your surgery. The techniques chosen are influenced by several factors including your health and the operation being planned for. The most common anaesthetic used to facilitate vascular surgery is a general anaesthetic.

After safety checks and monitoring are applied, you will be given oxygen to breathe whilst your anaesthetic is initiated through an injection into your IV cannula. You will be kept asleep though the use of Anaesthetic drugs which will be administered via your breathing circuit or cannula, and the doses adjusted in response to continuous monitoring to ensure that your anaesthetic is suitably tailored for you.

At the end of your operation the drugs will be stopped, you will awaken and be looked after in a recovery ward with trained nurses. Sometimes for health reasons it may be necessary to anaesthetise you via the use of a spinal anaesthetic, whereby an injection of local anaesthetic is made in your back to numb your lower body. This can be combined with sedation in order to help ensure a smooth and relaxing experience. If you are having an operation on your Carotid blood vessel this will commonly be done under a ‘block’, which involves injecting local Anaesthetic near to the nerves supplying sensation around the blood vessels in your neck. Again, this can be combined with a low dose of sedation to help facilitate the experience.

Occasionally, if the area being operated on is small and superficial, it may be possible for LA to be applied directly to the part of your body being operated on. Mr Oluwole will let you know if this is something that could be used for you.