Expert: JM Starkman, MD - 8/9/2009

Question
I've had quite a few surgeries in my young life. I've always wondered how general anesthetic actually works and what it does to the body.  I just had my 6th foot/leg surgery and the post-op nurse was telling me that when you are under, you stop breathing.  He said that what is in your IV is what is making you sleep, but that the tube that goes down into your stomach is where the anesthetic is going and that it shuts down all of your organs.  So I said to him, "so I'm life support" and he said yes.  Please explain how general anesthetic actually works and what it does.  Thank you.

Answer
The mechanism by which general anesthetics render one "anesthetized" is unknown!  They simply "work" to provide necessary conditions under which otherwise painful or impossible procedures or surgeries may occur.  Their effects, by definition are reversible.  Our current best guess as to how exactly anesthetic agents accomplish this is related to gross or specific disturbances on the cell membranes of excitable (nervous system) tissues/cells that alter lipoproteins' normal functions.

But, as a clinician I do not deal regularly with these questions......perhaps there is a neurophysiologist somewhere with more current or specific information than I have to give you.  Elucidation of the specific means by which anesthesia actually occurs would likely bring a Nobel prize in medicine.