i was told by someone that?

anytime you have a procedure done at the hospital, and they put you to sleep they put a tube down your throat .
Is this true and, if so why?

Pangolin2008-04-08T16:10:36Z

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Only sometimes. There are procedures that require all your muscles to be paralyzed, and then we have to breathe for you. There are other reasons why we might decide to intubate (that's what we call putting the breathing tube in) you - risk of inhaling your vomit, obesity, reflux, positioning during surgery, etc.

Sometimes during general anesthesia, we just hold a mask on your face, and other times, we use an LMA, which is an inflatable mask-like thing that sits in the back of your throat, but doesn't go all the way down to the trachea.

There are plenty of options besides general anesthesia, though. I'm a BIG fan of spinals - best anesthetic technique EVER! We also do epidurals, nerve blocks, sedation, and combinations of those.

Alcari2008-04-08T15:07:34Z

If you recieve full anesthesia, for surgery or similar, you do recieve a tube in your throat, the make sure your windpipe stays open and to adjust the aneasthetic. However, this is only used when you recieve a muscle relaxant, because you might stop breathing for yourself.

For almost all non-surgery and quite a few surgical procedures you don't have to be put the sleep totally, and your throart remains open as normal. If you do have to be fully brought to sleep, most of time you're not intubated either.

Dean M2008-04-08T15:03:48Z

Intubation is rarely used in a standard surgical procedure. the use of such a method is restricted to surgeries where a muscle relaxant is used.
Generally an anesthesia is administered in the form of a drug given either intravenously or for you to inhale.

olympics junkie2008-04-08T16:43:51Z

This is only done in certain procedures. For an average day-surgery procedure, changes are slim that this would be required. Speak to your doctor if you are concerned about this...

Anonymous2008-04-08T14:59:59Z

No, it's not true... it depends on the kind of anesthesia is required for a given procedure.

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