1000 patients suffer a DVT each year in the UK. A clot forms in the large veins deep inside the leg causing swelling and pain. One in 10 of these clots will break off and spread to the lungs where it is called a pulmonary embolus. A pulmonary embolus can result in chest pain… Read more »

  In this blog I am going to discuss how anaesthetists manage patients who are already on anticoagulants. There is another blog on my website about using anticoagulants after operations to prevent deep vein thrombosis and other clotting problems   Patients who are on anticoagulants or blood thinners will not form clots and are more… Read more »

  Major changes occurred in hospitals in the 1980s. Driven by improvements in anaesthetic drugs and monitoring capabilities, we realised that not every patient needed to be admitted to hospital the night before surgery nor to stay until the following day. The development of day case surgery, also known as ambulatory surgery in the United… Read more »

  A number of my patients have been concerned about being allergic to an anaesthetic drug. Most allergic reactions are so mild that they need no treatment but the rare serious allergy is very serious. Working together, anaesthetist and patient can minimise the risk.   An allergy is an abnormal learned response of the immune… Read more »

  Nausea after a general anaesthetic remains one of the commonest and most distressing side-effects. Most patients do not actually vomit but nausea is unpleasant and delays recovery as well as discharge from hospital. Although nausea and vomiting are side effects of a number of anaesthetic drugs, it is thought that many patients are nauseous… Read more »

  Being awake during a general anaesthetic is extremely rare but the fear of awareness is not uncommon. British anaesthesia leads the world in undertaking national audit programmes (NAPs) and in 2014 NAP5 reported on awareness after analysing 2,800,000 anaesthetics. This report has significantly increased our understanding and allows us to reduce the risk and… Read more »

  Obstructive sleep apnoea or OSA is a condition where an individual stops breathing when they are asleep. It is more common in the obese and so we are seeing it more frequently. Most patients also snore but not all patients who snore have OSA as snoring can also arise from nasal obstruction.   It… Read more »

  If you are having a day case anaesthetic – in other words you are going home the same day as your operation – you will receive instructions from the hospital telling you that you have to be taken home, have a responsible adult stay overnight and that you should not drive. Some patients ask… Read more »

  There has been a significant increase in the amount of cosmetic surgery undertaken in the UK over the past decade and although the greatest increases been in nonsurgical procedures such as fillers and Botox, the number of operations under general anaesthesia has also increased. The media has concentrated with some justification on whether patients… Read more »

  Temperature control during an operation is yet another of the many tasks that anaesthetists are responsible for. Temperature control has a number of benefits and also affects the patient in recovery so I thought it would be useful to include a blog   Humans are mammals and therefore maintain a very strict control over… Read more »