Expert: Ronald Levy, M.D. - 2/7/2010

Question
I had a routine tonsillectomy several months ago. One week after the initial surgery the site opened up and I bled out requiring yet another surgery. (no blood transfusion required)

Several weeks after the second surgery I began to struggle with constant nausea and vomiting. I also became dizzy, confused, severely depressed and even psychotic.I started thinking that I had actually died during the second surgery and was in a "dream." Dr's ran lots of tests to rule out any issue with the brain and all came back fine.  I have no history of mental issues. Could this be related to the anesthesia? I had never had anesthesia administered before and I am wondering if it was somehow toxic to my body? It is nearly two months after the fact and I continue to struggle with severe fear, anxiety, depression, etc. Doesn't this seem like a long time after the fact to still be happening?

Answer
While it seems related, I doubt this has anything to do with the anesthesia. There has never been any study that shows an increase in psychoses associated with anesthesia so there is likely another cause going on here. Any anesthetic you got was out of your system with 24-48 hours so none of the symptoms that you had weeks later could be related to that.

Ronald Levy, MD
Professor of Anesthesiology
UTMB-Galveston