If you're being put under general anaesthetic for wisdom tooth removal, do they !
Question:
If you're being put under general anaesthetic for wisdom tooth removal, do they use a breathing tube on you?
Just wondering. I have to have it done and I saw somewhere where somebody said they'd use a breathing tube because you couldn't breathe on your own. I'm not sure how true it is though... I'm trying to find out all the info I can because i've never had to do anything like this, and am not certain how it works.
Answers:
Technique varies from here to there, but when I was working at the Oral Surgery Unit at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, this is how they did it there:
For conscious sedation (not general anesthesia) where the patient is knocked out but still able to breathe on his/her own, no intubation was done. The patient is hooked up to a pulse oximeter on one finger for monitoring however. This is usually good enough for most wisdom teeth extractions.
For general anesthesia, the patient is NOT able to breathe on his/her own. This requires an anesthesiologist MD to put the patient under and act as life support while the procedure is being performed, and there IS intubation-- Not through the mouth, but through one nostril and down the throat from there so it won't interfere with the oral surgeon's operating field.
Just what I've seen..