Need help in getting over surgery phobia because of anesthesia awareness and reactions to paralytics.?

I have had four episodes of anesthesia awareness and severe prolonged reactions to paralytic agents. Was completely paralyzed for 6 hours two times yet not hooked up to any monitors so couldn't tell anyone anything. Nurses kept recording on my chart, "patient asleep." I need to have surgery and can't bring myself to risk it again. I've been suffering something like post-traumatic stress disorder for years as a result. I'm terribly distraught. I need hip surgery so badly I can't get around; I'm losing my ability to earn an income; yet I'm so phobic I can't consent to surgery. I've heard and researched something about pseudocholinesterase deficiency, yet health care professionals just poo-poo me, which is what they've done before resulting in horrific experiences. Help!

let the doctors know about it, that way they can whack you over the head with the bedpan before any injections or anything to make sure your asleep.

You're in luck with hip surgery. The answer is regional anesthesia - either a spinal or epidural. You can have some sedation with it, but no need for succinylcholine or other paralytics.

I wonder why you weren't hooked to any monitors if paralyzed. Patients who cannot breathe on their own are usually very well monitored!

No anesthesiologist I know would ever treat an abnormal reaction to a paralytic drug lightly. Have you been tested for pseudocholinesterase abnormality? (It's more common to have PCE that doesn't work right, as opposed to not having enough of it.) It tends to be hereditary, so if you DO have that, family members should also be checked.

Call the anesthesia department at you hospital and ask for a pre-operative consult. We like to know about problem patients well ahead of time. That way, we can formulate a plan that will work for YOU.

Good luck. Spinals are the best anesthetic EVER. I've had one, and put in many hundreds of them, maybe thousands.