Anesthesia for an outpatient in our office can vary from local anesthesia to true general anesthesia.
Oral and maxillofacial surgeons are unique among the surgical specialties with regards to anesthesia training. Every oral and maxillofacial surgeon during their residency receives formal anesthesia training with the Department of Anesthesia in the hospital. They are taught the skills to safely administer anesthesia to patients. This includes IV sedation, general anesthesia, airway management and intubation techniques. This also includes complete training in Advanced Cardiac Life Support. Your doctor, as most oral and maxillofacial surgeons, follows the guidelines and protocols set forth by our provincial medical and dental regulatory body. By doing so, our office is regularly inspected. All office staff are certified in CPR. Please click here to see an informative video on Anesthesia provided by Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons.
Your doctor has advanced training in all aspects of anesthesia and emergency care. During the initial consultation, you and your doctor will discuss the type of procedure involved, your medical history and your level of anxiety. Some procedures due to their nature require the use of general anesthesia or IV sedation, whereas others are best accomplished under local anesthesia. The choice of anesthesia is always a personal decision and should be made only after an informative consultation with your doctor. In addition, during the initial consultation, you will also be given instructions to prepare for surgery such as:
Although most of the more modern anesthetic medications are kind to the stomach and do not produce nausea, occasionally just the anxiety that one has about having surgery can generate a queasy feeling in one???s stomach. A patient who becomes sick with a full stomach could present a potentially dangerous scenario of choking. Therefore, it is important to follow all pre-operative instructions. The medications used for sedation do persist in the blood stream for up to 24 hours. Therefore it is understood that you WILL NOT operate a vehicle or operate machinery for 24 hours after being subjected to sedation or general anesthesia.
Your doctor is also available to answer any specific questions you may have in regards to the anesthetic. The benefits of general anesthesia and/or intravenous sedation include a decrease in anxiety and awareness during the surgery. This translates into near or total amnesia of the procedure, lack of noise perception and no pain. During the procedure it is important to note that patients who are still given local anesthetic to "numb" the area or who are partially sedated may also feel occasional pressure.
Coming to our office for the day of surgery and anesthesia is no different than having surgery in your own hospital and it is often much more user-friendly. The equipment in our surgical suites and recovery room are the same as those used in the hospitals. When you arrive in the surgical suite the nurse will connect you to a number of monitors and start an intravenous. Safe anesthesia demands the use of several non-invasive monitors that we attach to you. These devices are typically a blood pressure cuff, an EKG (electrocardiogram) and a pulse oximeter (a device that measures the amount of oxygen in your blood). Therefore, it is suggested that you wear loose clothing to facilitate the application of these important devices. Routinely drugs will be injected into the intravenous to cause you to relax or sleep. If you have serious fear of needles, we can use laughing gas prior to placing an intravenous. All the medications used to provide the anesthesia will be administered through the IV. Our goal is to provide you with the most relaxing and comfortable experience possible.
Once the procedure is completed, the recovery room nurse will review with you and your escort all the post-operative instructions and answer any questions either of you may have in regards to care of your mouth. Your doctor is always on-call and he can also answer any emergency questions you may have in regards to your care following your surgery.