Why do you have to starve for more than 24 hrs before your surgery?

Fasting before surgery is a long established tradition for anesthesia providers although the exact terms vary according to conditions and doctor. Most institutions require nothing after midnight the night before; I think you are almost certainly misinterpreting this as noon the day before.The reasoning behind this is quite simple. When you are "put under", the muscle keeping what  is in your stomach down there relaxes, and stomach contents including stomach acid can come up, go into your airway, and down into your lungs. This is potentially catastrophic, causing all sorts of breathing issues or even death. Unless surgery is an acute emergency, we want to avoid this as even a remote possibility.Usually five or six hours is enough time for the stomach to clear, but to be safe, and because schedules sometimes change, even patients having their surgery at noon or later are often "NPO" after midnight the night before.

Great question! A preoperative fast is necessary when going under general anesthesia in order to keep your airways as clear as possible during surgery. Whenever you eat, your body produces stomach acid which may work its way up into your airways while you're asleep.  Following the "Nothing By Mouth" guidelines may leave you a little bit hungry and thirsty, but your safety is our first priority!Check out this short video where we sit down with our Anesthesiologist and discuss other general guidelines.Enjoy your journey!

It's a great question. Every office is different, but most offices will require that you not eat or drink anything eight hours before your surgical procedure. If your surgery is first thing in the morning, it's typically not too bad to avoid eating and drinking until the time of surgery. When our patients have surgery in the afternoon, they were usually wake up have breakfast and something to drink, and then avoid eating for the rest of the day.