Scared for surgery in 5 days?

Question

I'm quite worried for surgery. I'm scared of dying or something going wrong. If I was to have a reaction to the general annastetic what would happen to make sure I recover? What's the chances of bleeding out and dying. And do you get I'll from implants. I have done a lot of research before paying for surgery. But I think I've looked to much into it

Martin Jugenburg, MD · Answer

It is completely
normal to feel scared and anxious.

You see, we are naturally scared of
things we do not know or things we do not understand. You may know too much,
but the question would be if you understand it well enough. In order to
overcome fear, you must educate yourself as much as possible about the surgical
process while also not taking things out of context.

For example, you are afraid of a reaction
to a general anesthetic. However, you probably did not look into the incidence
of general anesthetic allergies. It ranges from 1 in 3500 to 1 in 20,000
general anesthetics. Regardless of which rate you take, the percent of patients
having an allergic reaction is very close to zero. If you do not have a family
history of reactions to anesthetic agents, you should be fine.

Next, you are worried about bleeding out,
but you probably did not read that the incision surgeons make will be small and
it will be a blood-less dissection due to electrical cauterization – which uses
heat to close blood vessels. When there is less bleeding, there will be less
pain when you wake up.

The source of all this anxiety could be
reading through tonnes of reviews of breast augmentation. Of course, if you read
negative reviews, you are more likely to become anxious, but if you read more
positive reviews, you are more likely to become excited about the surgery.

You have to realize that one patient is
not like another, so taking those negative reviews and applying it your own
case is pointless. In fact, even the breasts in the same individual are never
entirely the same which is why we may see that certain complications occur only
in one breast and not the other.

Please know that compared to the number
of people who get BBAs each year (over 300,000) compared to the number of
negative reviews you read, you will realize 2 things, 1) those with negative
results are more likely to share their story, 2) compared to positive results,
the likelihood of negative results is highly uncommon.

So I urge you to look into the likelihood
of the complications that are scaring you.

In fact, if you were to look at the list of complications to
any surgery, or number of side effects to any drug, you would be more likely to
reject the surgery or drug. The point to understand is not that there are many
risks, but rather the rate of occurrence (i.e., incidence rate of the
complications)

For example, infection is a very dangerous complication that
could destroy BBA results, but the chance of infection following breast
augmentation is 1% which means that there is 99% chance you will not get an
infection. See how if you change the point of reference, things look much
better. This is because of the psychological effect our body has to negative
information.

Another example - many patients read blogs from others about
how they are terrified of general anesthesia and start worrying excessively.
They will read things such as, “oh, what if I wake up during surgery…oh what if
I do not wake up at all?” These are worrisome questions for sure, but again,
they are also highly unlikely situations as you will be supervised during
surgery by a board-certified anesthesiologist and the whole surgical team.

So relax and if you trust board-certified surgeon, then be
confident that nothing will go wrong.

Hope this helps!

Jonathan Saunders, MD · Answer

it is normal to be nervous,  I worry more about patients who are not nervous.  you are more likely to have a significant issue driving a car today than having anesthetic

Christopher V. Pelletiere, MD · Answer

It is very common for patients to get nervous leading up to surgery.  That is a natural response.  I usually ask my patients to refrain from going online a week before surgery.  There is so much information available, both good and bad, and it is difficult for a patient to filter what to believe and what not on their own.  The risks of the surgery and anesthetic are extremely low which is why it is the most popular cosmetic surgery every year by far.  The best thing to do is to try and eliminate the noise and focus on the positive results that will come when you are all healed.  I hope this helps.

Tom J. Pousti, MD · Answer

Whether or not to proceed with breast augmentation surgery is ultimately a very personal decision that only you can make after very careful consideration of the pros/cons associated with the decision.Anxiety prior to surgery is very normal; its complete elimination is usually not possible. Assuming you have chosen your plastic surgeon carefully, other important "variables" such as anesthesia provider and surgery facility will be selected based on everyone's first priority: safety. This careful selection should give you some peace of mind that you will be safe around the time of surgery. Discuss your specific areas of concerns with your plastic surgeon who will be in the best position to help you calm your nerves.

I ask my patients to try to be as calm as possible prior to surgery; this “calmness" tends to translate to a smoother postoperative course. You may be able to alleviate some pre operative anxiety with music, exercise, meditation, a glass of wine (if ok with your surgeon), and positive/objective focus on the long term outcome/benefits etc. prior to your procedure.

Again, I think you will be best off, given that your surgery is coming up very soon, spending additional time with your plastic surgeon communicating your goals/concerns/questions carefully (preferably prior to the day of surgery). In doing so will you likely find peace of mind and decreased anxiety.

Generally, I find that in our practice, patients find that they did “get worked up for nothing” after their recovery is completed.

I hope this helps.

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Scared for surgery in 5 days?

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