Believe it or not, you can get cataract surgery WITHOUT anesthesia if you find a consenting surgeon. I did. No biggie. Just a more wild ride. Eye drops take care of the pain. The anesthesiologist will still be on hand with a pre-inserted line.
I’m super glad I found a good surgeon with prior experience. He had donated time in India where they had minimal resources.
My very elderly father is extremely Squeamish and can’t cope with witnessing any medical procedure managed to have both cataracts done about a month apart with no ill effect and just local anaesthetic and he tolerated it unbelievably well. My mother in law similar age and similar good outcome
The elephant in the room here is the absence of control for the independent variable (GA).
Studying the paper (and its erratum) recognises the plethora of competing neurophysiological assaults in play including (but not limited to) depth and time of anaesthesia, extent and complexity of surgery, wellness/sickness of the patient, allostatic load, O2 perfusion, previous history of CVA/MI, etc.
This is a complex subject with a multitude of variables and [obviously] no control, though some animal models may exist that grant some potential insight.
Anaesthetists appear well aware of the attached risks associated with surgery at >65yrs though, as with all clinical practice, usual practice should be discerned from best practice, which is inevitably another unspoken elephant in the room.
PS. Bilateral cataract surgery is routinely undertaken by choice/consent under local.
Thank you for your explanation! As I read the original article, I was wondering about the complex contributing factors. I don’t know that most doctors think that way any more. In this area , nobody asks for /or does local! Even my sister who is a pharmacist with a post doctoral was surprised.
My mother passed recently at 101, and believe it or not I think she would have made 103-106 if she hadn’t been given yearly vaccines. I seem to be the only one making a connection between her various symptoms and the injections.
Key seems the idea that "...usual practice should be discerned from best practice.." 😳😬😵💫
The systematic derogation of established ethics and its furnishing illusion of selective and 'economical' (double entendre intended) uninformed consent has played out as a vigorous intentional assault since 2020 and before (childhood and other vaccines).
By now, if the blindfolds haven't been lifted a scintilla, 'longevity' may prove elusive and premature sickness assured.
It is heartening to observe a greater number of individuals sensitised to their predicament.
Holy crap. My 79 year old wife has been sedated for several procedures/operations over the last year. We haven't noticed anything to suggest there has been a decline in her functional abilities. It may be a slower outcome barely noticeable until it really is. Scary.
She said she signed a paper from the anesthesiologist before her recent surgery (last week) but I am sure she didn't read it and I was not at the hospital to read it either. This is getting freakier by the month, reading more and more about the horrors of the medical system and what it is doing to patients. Apart from the appalling aftermath of the fake covid pandemic.
I will have to be on my death bed before I let these monsters do anything to me. From the experiences with my wife, I can see close up that it is nothing but testing, procedures and operations and more testing and more drugs. This has NOTHING to do with health. I ask the doctors questions and compare with what they have told my wife and it becomes more confusing every time.
Thank you. Great link that anybody undergoing various types of anesthesia SHOULD read. It will not do any harm, if my understanding is correct, to load up on B-12 prior to & after any surgeries for teeth or body as a whole, altho a blood test up to 4-6 mos prior would be advisable. A blood test FOLLOWING said surgeries seems like a logical, as well.
I had two surgeries back in Europe. Before surgery, I was given a sheet with possible risks of the anesthesia. I had to carefully read it, then sign that I understood the risks. I am not sure they do that here in the US. My eye doctor disadvized me to get cataract surgery, as it is still in early stage, and a few weeks ago, I read cataract can be reversed and healed, so I will try that first. I also know that years ago, the vet in Europe refused to operate on a 12 year old dog, because there were too many risks compared to a good outcome. But doctors operate on 95 year old patients. It is not surprising, that there are risks attached to it.
The idea isn't bad. Some commercial artificial tears actually include castor oil (e.g., Refresh Optive Advanced Lubricant Eye Drops).
The main issue is that food grade castor oil is not sterile. If even tiny amounts of water enter the bottle (dropper touching the eye, skin, or humidity), microbes can grow in it. Organisms known to occasionally grow in oils, include Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Candida albicans. None of which you want in your eye.
Another issue is that theoretically, processing can leave behind eye-unfriendly chemicals.
If you continue using food grade oil, buy the smallest containers. Or just look for an inexpensive generic (but approved) OTC 'artificial tears' = lubricant.
I am. I'm also not at all concerned with bacteria. Although I do agree you don't want water in your oils as it can cause spoilage, which is not the fault of the bacteria.
I don't see how that compares it to bleach. I also would not use artificial tears or any man made product as they are always more dangerous than nature's ingredients. Also, I am not suggesting using castor oil on a regular basis for eye lubrication but rather on a basis specifically to get rid of cataracts.
Alternative medicine sees this differently. We would say the cause of the cognitive impairment is lack of the body's ability to clear the anesthetic, usually due to liver toxicity. Liver sluggishness due to toxin buildup is common in older patients, especially ones that have eaten the standard American diet and taken medications for years. I'd LOVE to see that study look at all the factors in their lives and see if it's the most toxic load people who react worst.
In the meantime, what I'm taking away from this, besides eat healthy and don't take meds, is to keep the liver detoxified so it functions well, and if you are going in for a procedure with anesthesia, do extra detoxing before it. If someone DOES come up with cognitive issues after surgery, try liver detox, it might help, can't make it worse.
I suspect that many doctors are simply unaware of these risks in a concrete sense - even if they are vaguely aware of the danger. There are many other incentives that can obscure or hide the known risks.
We should also be conscious that defining elderly, and setting a line at age 60 are arbitrary marks. Eg. Someone who is 55 is probably close to being in similar danger. And, someone who is 25, or 15 is also in danger - we just don't have the data, the evidence, the studies to understand. And there is little medical interest. Our current medical systems have little interest in causes that cannot be addressed medically, and less interest in causes that are medical. Insiders don't want to "find out."
I knew this about GA decades ago when I found a very small suspicious lump in my breast at age 47. My fingers reacted with the irrevocable knowledge that it was not benign. I first got an ultrasound. Result was highly suspicious, not a typical cyst. I did not want needle aspiration biopsy or punch biopsy because of the documented risk of spreading malignant cells. I also did not want a mammogram because I didn't want radiation to tissue that was dividing abnormally. I wanted a wide excision biopsy without sentinel node removal, with injected 'caine anesthesia instead of GA., because the tumour was tiny, just under the skin, near my sternum, readily palpable. I was chronically fluoride-poisoned since birth from fluoridated tap water in formula, tea drinking, living in fluoridated cities, medications, dental treatments and other surgeries under GA, and had no physiological reserves to cope with another massive fluoride dose. In a metro population area of ten million there was not one hospital that would perform a wide excision biopsy under local anesthetic despite my pleading. I had to have a needle biopsy (positive for cancer cells), mammogram (didn't even show the tumour!) then partial mastectomy under GA. It utterly destroyed my health and triggered wasting diarrhea that put my kidneys at risk. I was never able to work full time again. I lost my edge, physically and cognitively.
What do you mean? The whole point of me avoiding unnecessary general anesthesia for surgical removal of a small tumour plus margins that could have been done with regional local freezing is that GA uses fluorinated gas that is neurotoxic and also destroys the gut microvilli. I had good reason to avoid another bolus dose of fluoride. I did not need the larger tissue removal for partial mastectomy. I had to consent to what I dreaded, what was medically risky for me, because no one would consider what I needed, and it changed my life long term for the worse, because of medical ignorance, rigid arbitrary policies, and the one-size-fits-all approach to breast cancer surgery.
I survived, learned a lot and changed the direction of my life, so there was some good out of it. My experience helped other women navigate the system, advocate for themselves, and avoid harm.
This is exactly my sense of it, and why I avoid it like the plague. Whilst everyone else around me is going in for this that or the other "routine" procedure, I say "no thanks, I have an abnormal fear of unconsciousness". Turns out it isnt abnormal at all!😁🤣
I have had a lot of lengthy surgeries in my adult life. I noticed that the operations performed in my 50s (3 of them but at least 2 years apart) all caused me a reduction in my verbal skills. No-one else noticed because my verbal skills are at the top end anyway, but I was very aware of the issue. It took a few months but I’m convinced that I didn’t recover my cognition 100%.
Support liver and kidney detox with well-selected herbs.
There also are homeopathic medicines (made in homeopathic pharmacies) that support detox and recovery after surgery. The specific meds depend a bit on the particular symptoms in an individual patient.
So Anaesthesia for old people done in connection with eye surgery may cause brain damage? It would have been interesting with some more information about what circumstances influence whether or not such damage occurs. What about nutrition and appropriate vitamins would that improve the odds?
No one warned me about the likely hearing loss after a lumber anaesthetic. Now totally deaf in one ear because the consultant wanted to take biopsies from my anal canal in the easiest manner for him. The anaesthetist initially refused to give me a general anaesthetic at the consultants request.
At age 62 I had quadruple bypass surgery and came out with a case of what they call "pumphead". It's a small stroke caused by the heart/lung machine during the procedure. 8 years later, it hasn't seemed to improve much.
Believe it or not, you can get cataract surgery WITHOUT anesthesia if you find a consenting surgeon. I did. No biggie. Just a more wild ride. Eye drops take care of the pain. The anesthesiologist will still be on hand with a pre-inserted line.
I’m super glad I found a good surgeon with prior experience. He had donated time in India where they had minimal resources.
Nearly all cataract surgery in the UK is done with local anaesthetic
Good to know. People in the USA want their magic juice. At least that’s what I heard an eager patient say in the pre-op theater.
My very elderly father is extremely Squeamish and can’t cope with witnessing any medical procedure managed to have both cataracts done about a month apart with no ill effect and just local anaesthetic and he tolerated it unbelievably well. My mother in law similar age and similar good outcome
About 2.2% of cataract surgery in the US is performed under general anesthesia. 61% under topical only, ~37% under topical with regional nerve block.
The more you know, the more you know. Word of mouth via sub stack!!!
The elephant in the room here is the absence of control for the independent variable (GA).
Studying the paper (and its erratum) recognises the plethora of competing neurophysiological assaults in play including (but not limited to) depth and time of anaesthesia, extent and complexity of surgery, wellness/sickness of the patient, allostatic load, O2 perfusion, previous history of CVA/MI, etc.
This is a complex subject with a multitude of variables and [obviously] no control, though some animal models may exist that grant some potential insight.
Anaesthetists appear well aware of the attached risks associated with surgery at >65yrs though, as with all clinical practice, usual practice should be discerned from best practice, which is inevitably another unspoken elephant in the room.
PS. Bilateral cataract surgery is routinely undertaken by choice/consent under local.
Thank you for your explanation! As I read the original article, I was wondering about the complex contributing factors. I don’t know that most doctors think that way any more. In this area , nobody asks for /or does local! Even my sister who is a pharmacist with a post doctoral was surprised.
My mother passed recently at 101, and believe it or not I think she would have made 103-106 if she hadn’t been given yearly vaccines. I seem to be the only one making a connection between her various symptoms and the injections.
At least 106 - but probably 110 to 120 - or 140 or 150
All good. :-)
Key seems the idea that "...usual practice should be discerned from best practice.." 😳😬😵💫
The systematic derogation of established ethics and its furnishing illusion of selective and 'economical' (double entendre intended) uninformed consent has played out as a vigorous intentional assault since 2020 and before (childhood and other vaccines).
By now, if the blindfolds haven't been lifted a scintilla, 'longevity' may prove elusive and premature sickness assured.
It is heartening to observe a greater number of individuals sensitised to their predicament.
Your contention that "nobody does local" is simply untrue - nor has that been the case for decades.
Under 5% of US cataract cases are done under general anesthesia.
This is a large review from Europe, but the same anesthetic and surgical procedures are used in US.
https://journals.lww.com/jcrs/fulltext/2022/12000/anesthesia_techniques_and_the_risk_of.10.aspx
Could this be regional?
Could depend on the population's health care insurance. For example, some areas have high concentration of patients on Medicare or Medicaid.
I think so also.
As in the anesthetic - regional block? Definitely.
Geographically regional?.Only if you live in alternate reality.
Alternate reality it is then.
I just asked chat GPT, and 90 % patients get light intravenous anesthesia in the US.
Holy crap. My 79 year old wife has been sedated for several procedures/operations over the last year. We haven't noticed anything to suggest there has been a decline in her functional abilities. It may be a slower outcome barely noticeable until it really is. Scary.
She said she signed a paper from the anesthesiologist before her recent surgery (last week) but I am sure she didn't read it and I was not at the hospital to read it either. This is getting freakier by the month, reading more and more about the horrors of the medical system and what it is doing to patients. Apart from the appalling aftermath of the fake covid pandemic.
I will have to be on my death bed before I let these monsters do anything to me. From the experiences with my wife, I can see close up that it is nothing but testing, procedures and operations and more testing and more drugs. This has NOTHING to do with health. I ask the doctors questions and compare with what they have told my wife and it becomes more confusing every time.
Knowledge + wisdom = power
Check out:
https://www.b12-vitamin.com/anesthesia/
https://b12awareness.org/
Thank you. Great link that anybody undergoing various types of anesthesia SHOULD read. It will not do any harm, if my understanding is correct, to load up on B-12 prior to & after any surgeries for teeth or body as a whole, altho a blood test up to 4-6 mos prior would be advisable. A blood test FOLLOWING said surgeries seems like a logical, as well.
Thanks. The little gems we get to pick up in comments!
I had two surgeries back in Europe. Before surgery, I was given a sheet with possible risks of the anesthesia. I had to carefully read it, then sign that I understood the risks. I am not sure they do that here in the US. My eye doctor disadvized me to get cataract surgery, as it is still in early stage, and a few weeks ago, I read cataract can be reversed and healed, so I will try that first. I also know that years ago, the vet in Europe refused to operate on a 12 year old dog, because there were too many risks compared to a good outcome. But doctors operate on 95 year old patients. It is not surprising, that there are risks attached to it.
Put one drop of castor oil in the eye each night. If that is unappealing rub some castor oil on the eyelid, may take a little longer
That's a very interesting comment. Do you have any information to back up the idea that using castor oil externally is harmful to the body?
The idea isn't bad. Some commercial artificial tears actually include castor oil (e.g., Refresh Optive Advanced Lubricant Eye Drops).
The main issue is that food grade castor oil is not sterile. If even tiny amounts of water enter the bottle (dropper touching the eye, skin, or humidity), microbes can grow in it. Organisms known to occasionally grow in oils, include Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Candida albicans. None of which you want in your eye.
Another issue is that theoretically, processing can leave behind eye-unfriendly chemicals.
If you continue using food grade oil, buy the smallest containers. Or just look for an inexpensive generic (but approved) OTC 'artificial tears' = lubricant.
Are you in US?
I am. I'm also not at all concerned with bacteria. Although I do agree you don't want water in your oils as it can cause spoilage, which is not the fault of the bacteria.
I don't see how that compares it to bleach. I also would not use artificial tears or any man made product as they are always more dangerous than nature's ingredients. Also, I am not suggesting using castor oil on a regular basis for eye lubrication but rather on a basis specifically to get rid of cataracts.
Unless you're growing and pressing your own castor beans, your oil is coming through processing plants.
To get rid of cataracts? That doesn't happen.
The one time I had surgery, I was given NO informed consent at all. Not a print out, nor verbal.
Alternative medicine sees this differently. We would say the cause of the cognitive impairment is lack of the body's ability to clear the anesthetic, usually due to liver toxicity. Liver sluggishness due to toxin buildup is common in older patients, especially ones that have eaten the standard American diet and taken medications for years. I'd LOVE to see that study look at all the factors in their lives and see if it's the most toxic load people who react worst.
In the meantime, what I'm taking away from this, besides eat healthy and don't take meds, is to keep the liver detoxified so it functions well, and if you are going in for a procedure with anesthesia, do extra detoxing before it. If someone DOES come up with cognitive issues after surgery, try liver detox, it might help, can't make it worse.
Depletion of B12 may be one of the mechanisms of cognitive decline. So perhaps dose heavily with B12 before and after surgery?
https://www.b12-vitamin.com/anesthesia/
https://b12awareness.org/
I suspect that many doctors are simply unaware of these risks in a concrete sense - even if they are vaguely aware of the danger. There are many other incentives that can obscure or hide the known risks.
We should also be conscious that defining elderly, and setting a line at age 60 are arbitrary marks. Eg. Someone who is 55 is probably close to being in similar danger. And, someone who is 25, or 15 is also in danger - we just don't have the data, the evidence, the studies to understand. And there is little medical interest. Our current medical systems have little interest in causes that cannot be addressed medically, and less interest in causes that are medical. Insiders don't want to "find out."
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
~Upton Sinclair
I knew this about GA decades ago when I found a very small suspicious lump in my breast at age 47. My fingers reacted with the irrevocable knowledge that it was not benign. I first got an ultrasound. Result was highly suspicious, not a typical cyst. I did not want needle aspiration biopsy or punch biopsy because of the documented risk of spreading malignant cells. I also did not want a mammogram because I didn't want radiation to tissue that was dividing abnormally. I wanted a wide excision biopsy without sentinel node removal, with injected 'caine anesthesia instead of GA., because the tumour was tiny, just under the skin, near my sternum, readily palpable. I was chronically fluoride-poisoned since birth from fluoridated tap water in formula, tea drinking, living in fluoridated cities, medications, dental treatments and other surgeries under GA, and had no physiological reserves to cope with another massive fluoride dose. In a metro population area of ten million there was not one hospital that would perform a wide excision biopsy under local anesthetic despite my pleading. I had to have a needle biopsy (positive for cancer cells), mammogram (didn't even show the tumour!) then partial mastectomy under GA. It utterly destroyed my health and triggered wasting diarrhea that put my kidneys at risk. I was never able to work full time again. I lost my edge, physically and cognitively.
I'm sorry. That seems off, or not enough, but I could not read your story and say nothing.
What do you mean? The whole point of me avoiding unnecessary general anesthesia for surgical removal of a small tumour plus margins that could have been done with regional local freezing is that GA uses fluorinated gas that is neurotoxic and also destroys the gut microvilli. I had good reason to avoid another bolus dose of fluoride. I did not need the larger tissue removal for partial mastectomy. I had to consent to what I dreaded, what was medically risky for me, because no one would consider what I needed, and it changed my life long term for the worse, because of medical ignorance, rigid arbitrary policies, and the one-size-fits-all approach to breast cancer surgery.
I think Tim was sympathizing and apologizing that he considered a mere "I'm sorry" was not enough to communicate his sincere commiseration.
correct.
I only meant that I am sorry for what they put you through.
And I am sorry for misunderstanding your comment. We're good now.
Hugs and Hugs and Hugs... I wish I had magic for you .... :(
I am terribly, terribly sorry for your great loss.
I survived, learned a lot and changed the direction of my life, so there was some good out of it. My experience helped other women navigate the system, advocate for themselves, and avoid harm.
😖🙄😱
Why am I not surprised?
Milk Thistle and Quercitin are very helpful to detox, if you must have a surgery that requires anesthetic.
Over 50 years ago, my chemistry instructor told us that anesthesia was poison and the trick was a balancing act between death and sedation
Yes, which is why anesthesiologists make big bucks.
This is exactly my sense of it, and why I avoid it like the plague. Whilst everyone else around me is going in for this that or the other "routine" procedure, I say "no thanks, I have an abnormal fear of unconsciousness". Turns out it isnt abnormal at all!😁🤣
Remote ischemic conditioning RIC) can mitigate these problems if surgery is absolutely necessary. RIC CAN DO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.
https://curioushumanproductions.substack.com/p/the-surgery-shield
I have had a lot of lengthy surgeries in my adult life. I noticed that the operations performed in my 50s (3 of them but at least 2 years apart) all caused me a reduction in my verbal skills. No-one else noticed because my verbal skills are at the top end anyway, but I was very aware of the issue. It took a few months but I’m convinced that I didn’t recover my cognition 100%.
Maybe try boosting your B12 now and doing some liver support, like Milk Thistle, Dandelion, NAC
Thank you. Fortunately the last operation was 9 years ago and I have recovered from the anaesthetic and I do not intend to have any more operations.
Oh, it gets worse. General anesthesia in older people (and dogs, too) can cause significant hearing loss.
Is there anything that can be done to mitigate the damage?
Maybe B12.
https://www.b12-vitamin.com/anesthesia/
https://b12awareness.org/
Support liver and kidney detox with well-selected herbs.
There also are homeopathic medicines (made in homeopathic pharmacies) that support detox and recovery after surgery. The specific meds depend a bit on the particular symptoms in an individual patient.
So Anaesthesia for old people done in connection with eye surgery may cause brain damage? It would have been interesting with some more information about what circumstances influence whether or not such damage occurs. What about nutrition and appropriate vitamins would that improve the odds?
GENERAL anesthesia for ANY reason, not only eye surgery.
Is it usually with N2O? I mean you dont mean other kinds of painkillers?
Maybe B12.
https://www.b12-vitamin.com/anesthesia/
https://b12awareness.org/
Thanks
No one warned me about the likely hearing loss after a lumber anaesthetic. Now totally deaf in one ear because the consultant wanted to take biopsies from my anal canal in the easiest manner for him. The anaesthetist initially refused to give me a general anaesthetic at the consultants request.
At age 62 I had quadruple bypass surgery and came out with a case of what they call "pumphead". It's a small stroke caused by the heart/lung machine during the procedure. 8 years later, it hasn't seemed to improve much.