I'm scared, & need some immediate help guys!!

[Sweet Little Sister]

Hi everyone!! I posted this over in the "experiences" section, but they suggested that I post it over here, too. I know I'm a little late, since I may not be able to get back online after tonight, so hopefully you guys can help me tonight or I can sneak on for a few minutes this week!! Thanks for any help!!

I'm having some minor surgery on Friday. I smoke weed every day, & was told this is really bad before going under anesthesia. I don't know when to stop, AND when I can start up again. I was told they'll have a real hard time bringing me out of the anesthesia. Has anyone else been through this?? Please help me!!

Also, HOW do you fall asleep without weed?? I don't want to die, you know?? I know how paranoid I sound, but I'm worried. I spoke to the nurse, but her son OD'ed, so I'm sure she ws being overly cautious. I was told I couldn't even have a regular cigarette the day of the surgery!! I KNOW I've done that before!!

Any advice would be very much appreciated. And today is the only day I'll be able to get online until possibly Thursday, so thanks so much in advance!!

[silkyblue]

Drs urge you to give up smoke prior to surgery
you'll be okay


good luck ~~

[birdgirl73]

Sweet Sis, someone has frightened you unnecessarily. We'll also hope Fake Boobs Rule, our resident physician who works in precisely the field of anesthesia, will chime in here later and help reassure you further.

We get this question all the time. I don't know how heavily you smoke, but from a drug-interaction standpoint, you don't likely have much to worry about. You said it's minor surgery, which I'm assuming means IV sedation with a short-acting anesthetic like propolol or thiopental. Or you may even be having local anesthesia simply to deaden a specific area of your body. Chances are not a thing in the world they give you is going to interact with cannabis, which clears amazingly quickly from the body.

If I were you, I'd be completely candid with your anesthesiologist about your smoking history and frequency. If he/she thinks it's going to be a problem, he'll make the call. If it makes you feel any better, I've never yet heard of any physician calling off anyone's surgery because the patient is a heavy pot smoker. They'd be far more likely to do that if you were a heavy cigarette smoker. (Which I hope you're not!)

The real reason it's not ideal to smoke before surgery is because it's best for people who're about to undergo general anesthesia to have lungs that are as clear and free of irritants as is possible. Smoke of any kind is an irritant. If they're going to intubate you and breathe for you during an operation, you absorb less anesthesia and use it more efficiently with clear lungs. And you get fewer post-surgical and post-anesthetic complications, too, like pneumonia.

You didn't say what sort of surgery you're having or whether you're having it done in a hospital or not. It'll help FBR, our other mod, to know that if you don't mind sharing it. Also, please reassure us that you're not into other drugs besides cannabis. If you were a heavy user/abuser of something like narcotic pain relievers, that could be a problem with your ability to wake up.

Good luck! Try not to worry, OK?

[Weedhound]

I didn't know FBR was an anesthesiologist...Wow :thumbsup:

[Sweet Little Sister]

I USED to be a heavy pill popper.... Soma & Fioricets. I'm an addict but I've made my doctor's aware of this & haven't touched the stuff in a couple of years. I HAVE been abusing Tylenol PM's, but have cut down drastically. I've told them about that. They did a blood test on my liver & it's fine.

I'm getting a D&C. I'm going to have to be put under because I've never had children, so my cervix is too tight. I smoke a few bowls a night, & sometimes add a couple of bongs. If it matters, I'll be 44 next month. I'm allergic to Lidocaine, so I don't know what type of anesthesia they'll be using on me.

They mentioned something about how hard it would be to wake me up from the sedation & said I can't even smoke when I get home that night!! Please tell me this isn't true!! And do I REALLY have to stop after tonight?? They said I can have a couple of drinks on Thanksgiving, so I don't get it!! I'm so worried about not being able to sleep, I'm talking myself into it, I'm sure. But I also love getting high!! As we all do!!

And yup, I'm a pretty heavy cigarette smoker too. I think I'm allowed to have ONE the morning of the surgery.

[silkyblue]

Im no Doctorate but

Id steer clear of the cigs if your having surgery
untill your well
health is very important

there are a mil and one things to do besides smoke cigs

take care of you! tell them to give you drugs!

[birdgirl73]

Lidocaine's a topical analgesic (pain reliever) and isn't something they'll be using on you intravenously to put you to sleep. As long as they know you're allergic, that's as far as your involvement with that drug will go.

I'm guessing you're going to be simply IV-sedated. FBR may know of D&C instances where they'd need to do full-out intubation anesthesia, but I've never heard of those circumstances. I've had D&Cs after miscarriages, and I was simply heavily sedated with Valium or something like it. You're a little woozy and very relaxed when you wake up, but that's why they watch you for a while afterwards and insist that someone else drive you home and keep an eye on your afterwards.

A D&C won't require more than 10 minutes, and probably way less. Unless they simply think that, because of your addiction history, you may require more sedation than most folks, you will likely wake up like normal and be groggy if you had Valium and more wide awake if they used one of the shorter-acting anesthetics like propolol.

Just make sure you tell them the whole story, particularly your anesthesiologist, and that means about your cigarette use, too. You sound like you're anxious both about the procedure and about the fact that you're going to have to do without your cigarettes and weed before and after. They're correct that you shouldn't smoke cigarettes afterwards, and it'd be far more ideal if you left them off today and didn't smoke again till 3 to 5 days after your procedure's over. You're going to have some expected bleeding after that procedure, and cigarettes don't help wounds--in your case the entire interior surface of your uterus and your cervical os will be your wounds--seal off and heal normally. They also increase your risk of infection and other post-op complications like deep vein thromboses. So they weren't lying about it not being a good idea to smoke afterwards.

Obviously, in a nation of nearly 50 million cigarette smokers, people don't always follow those instructions. But if you want your surgery to be successful and your recovery uncomplicated, try and abstain from tobacco. If you're really that anxious about your ability to sleep before and after, they can prescribe you something to help with that, simply making sure not to give you a enough that it would re-ignite your pill addiction.

Drinks on Thanksgiving is a different thing. You wouldn't want to drink a fifth of Scotch or show up at the hospital drunk the morning of your procedure, obviously, but a drink or two the day before will have been metabolized by your liver and not likely to interfere with your level of sedation the following day. I suspect that whoever has tried to frighten you about your levels of sedation and cannabis interaction doesn't know how fast it clears, either, or has it mistaken for a heavy narcotic.

Good luck to you!

[thcbongman]

I would try to limit your intake on both cigarettes and weed, but I didn't exactly follow the doctors orders before surgery either, but I did inform them of what I done. You have to let them know, they do discourage it of course,

[TheSmokingMonkey]

You should probably abstain for a few days beforehand, but I have never heard of this being a major problem even for a heavy cannabis smoker.

Do quit the cigarettes, though, as they're horrible for you, in or out of surgery, if you are able to. Or at least cut back. The better shape your lungs can be in, the better.

As for the cannabis though, just quit a few days beforehand, it shouldn't be a problem.

I am the one that originally posted the bit about cannabis making novocaine/lidocaine/etc less effective. It's not dangerous; it's just that it can make the topical anesthetics less effective.

FYI; hope that clarifies.

I'm not an anesthesiologist, but I do have a medical background, and I have NEVER heard that cannabis is dangerous when combined with anesthetics. I think somebody fed you some misinformation on that one.

You can OD on anesthetic but a good anesthesiologist will do EVERYTHING medically possible to make sure you have a safe surgery.

[Sweet Little Sister]

SmokingMonkey, I think I was worried because I CAN smoke pretty heavily.... a lot of times I'll feel it the next day. Not that I'm complaining, lol!! I stopped last night, although I was in the room with a couple of people while they smoked a bong. But when it was passed to me, as hard as it was, I declined.

Do you think I can smoke a bowl the night I come home from my surgery? What exactly is your medical background, if you don't mind me asking? Your post makes me feel better.... thanks!! As for the cigarettes.... I'm smoking like crazy at night now, which is when I normally smoke my weed. I'm not anywhere near ready to quit or even cut down, unfortunately.

Thanks to everyone for the help!! I'll try to check back in tomorrow. If I can't, I'll try again after my surgery Friday, assuming all goes well!!

[birdgirl73]

Sister, Smoking Monkey is our resident dentist, which I hope is OK that I told you. She has the same medical background that physicians do and has the added bonus of knowing how anesthesia/analgesia work, too.

Please tell your anesthesiologist about your nicotine use before he/she puts you under on Friday. My husband, who may sign on after I finish here, is an interventional cardiologist. He does procedures three days a week in which people are put under some type of anesthesia. He just said "I'd feel a hell of a lot better about her smoking a bowl of weed after she gets home from her surgery than more cigarettes." He doesn't just say that because of the everyday risks we all know about tobacco. He means so your tissues can heal, the bleeding can stop and so you don't give yourself post-op complications like deep vein thromboses.

Do check in with us when you get home on Friday!

[FakeBoobsRule]

Every time I sit down to write a response I get interrupted. I almost was done last time but had to run so I copied it to finish it later, then it got erased. I will post an answer here soon.

[Sweet Little Sister]

Birdgirl, what's deep vein thromboses? I have vericose veins in my left leg & that just caught my eye.

FBR, even though I obviously got through my surgery okay, could you post what you were going to post anyway? I'd like to know as much as possible, in case I ever have to go through this again.

My anesthesiologist didn't seem concerned about me smoking weed OR cigarettes. As long as I didn't do it after midnight, I DID have 4 drags of a cig that morning, but told him. He had no problem with it. I asked him if I could smoke weed when I got home & we talked about weed vs. pills. We both agreed weed is better.... him saying he WISHED he could do that instead of drinking, haha. According to him, he doesn't, & I believe him. I felt better after talking to him. I didn't realize they have MD's.

Bottom line is, I'm okay, thank God, but I'd still like any info I can get, just in case. Even though he said I could have smoked up until that night, I'm not so sure that would have been a good idea, but like I said, I want to hear what everyone else says,

I also want to thank everyone for all of your support!! You helped me so much more than you'll probably ever know!!

[birdgirl73]

Glad to see you back online, Sister, and glad you made it through successfully. That's the good thing about anesthesiologists; they're very cool people, as a rule, and more accepting of recreational drug use than any other type of medical specialist I've ever met. Maybe it's because they're in the business of drugging folks to take away pain and administering various types of medicines that other physicians wouldn't even begin to consider.

Deep vein thromboses (the -es ending is simply the plural form of thrombosis) are essentially blood clots that originate in the deep veins of the lower half of the body, usually in the legs or the pelvis. When people have surgery, they're lying still and are anesthetized. The surgical procedure opens up an incision and the body begins to respond to that perceived injury by releasing clotting substances into the bloodstream, among other things. I also have a theory that a surgical incision interrupts the body's normally closed, contained vascular fluid system and that, just like would happen if you had a closed bottle of fluid lying on its side and cut into it, an incision in a human body throws off that fluid equilibrium, which causes air bubbles and, with coagulation chemicals like thrombin thrown into the mix, prompts clots to form and want to break loose and travel upstream.

Therein lies the problem. A clot that forms down deep in the leg veins is going to want to travel upstream to the lungs along with the other blood returning in that direction to be oxygenated and recirculated. So people who form DVTs are at risk of having a pulmonary embolism or even an embolic stroke. You don't want a pulmonary embolism or a stroke.

Lots of things put people at risk for DVTs. Surgery, and particularly female surgery (the longer the procedure, the higher the risk). Varicose veins. Recent air travel. Obesity. Cigarette smoking. Higher estrogen levels from birth control or simply being of the female sex. It's not a post-operative complication that's fun to deal with. And it's a very common one. I had a colleague about 10 years ago who went into the hospital to have some fairly minor back surgery--a perfectly healthy, slender, non-smoking 32-year-old who had gotten married to the love of her life about four weeks earlier--and when she was allowed to get out of bed the next day and stand up, she took 10 steps over to the sink and fell over dead from a DVT embolism that had traveled up to her brain. It's fairly standard operating procedure to put people in compression boots or anti-thrombus compression hosiery before surgery to help lower the risk, but it can't be completely eliminated. In the case of Diane, my colleague, she was on birth control that probably raised her estrogen levels to a more risky level, and it turns out she also had an until-then-unidentified clotting disorder. The disorder in combination with the birth control made her a walking DVT time bomb, only they didn't know that till too late.

You can read more here at these sites:
Deep vein thrombosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_vein_thrombosis)
MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia: Deep venous thrombosis (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000156.htm)
Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT): Venous Disorders: Merck Manual Home Edition (http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec03/ch036/ch036b.html)

[silkyblue]

Sister, Im happy your okay :thumbsup: I have a vari vein too on the side of me weg, crazy thangs vari veins!

That sounds like a reallycool doktor !

I quit cigs 7 year sago

hubby nagged at me till I just quit the dam things

I dont regret quitting cigs but

I trully didnt know where to put all my new found air

much good luck to ya sis