Anxious about what happens when you’re given a general anaesthetic? Breathe talks to two anaesthetists who describe what it’s like to ‘go under’ and go to great lengths to allay any fears

Few people are lucky enough to make it through life without ever needing a surgical procedure, be it a heart bypass, cesarean section or a set of stitches to close a wound. Many are performed using a local anaesthetic, where a specific area of the body is numbed but you remain conscious and alert. Others require a general anaesthetic, which means the patient is unconscious. With both local and general, there should be no pain during the operation, procedure or treatment, but it’s the latter – and that thought of ‘going under’ – that raises many a patient’s anxiety levels.

With this in mind – and the fact that everyone’s different and will naturally have varied expectations and concerns when it comes to surgery and anaesthetics – an understanding of what to expect on the day of your surgery often helps to alleviate anxiety. So, what really happens when you ‘go under’?

1 What is anaesthesia?

General anaesthetics are powerful drugs that render a patient unconscious so they don’t feel pain during surgery. They affect many different functions in the body – stopping the brain responding to signals travelling from the nerves, paralysing the muscles and reducing the body’s stress response, which help recovery. Many of today’s life-saving operations would be impossible without them. They’re administered by doctors with specialist training – known as anaesthetists in the UK and Australia, and anaesthesiologists in the US and Canada – who remain with the patient throughout surgery, monitoring them constantly. General anaesthesia can be given via injection into a vein, as gases through a mask or a combination of both, and it’s part of the anaesthetist’s job to decide which combination of drugs to use in each specific case.