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Your Stay in the Recovery Room
What Happens Right After Surgery?
After surgery, you will be taken to the Recovery
Room, known formally as the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit,
or PACU. You will still be quite groggy from the surgical
anesthesia. The anesthesia team will carefully follow
your progress as the anesthetic wears off.
General anesthesia is used for all
types of weight loss surgery. This means that you
are completely asleep during surgery. A breathing
tube is inserted in your mouth while you are sleeping.
While most patients have the breathing tube removed
as they wake up in the operating room, it may be safer
in some cases to leave the tube in and remove it in
the PACU. Your anesthesiologist will make the decision
as to when it is safe to remove the tube.
What Kind
of Pain Medicine is Given?
In the PACU, your anesthesia team will help
assess what type of postoperative pain control will
be best for you. If they feel that you will benefit
from a PCA device (patient-controlled analgesia, where
you get a dose of pain medication every time you press
a button) they will set this up while you are here.
How Long Do I Stay in the
Recovery Room?
Some patients remain in the PACU for several
hours. Others remain overnight.Once you have fully
recovered from the effects of the general anesthesia,
the PACU team will transfer you up to your hospital
room. If they feel that more intensive monitoring
is required, you may be transferred to the Surgical
Intensive Care Unit (SICU) or the Stepdown Unit instead.
Do Patients
Routinely go the the Intensive Care Unit ?
Patients do not routinely go to the Intensive
Care Unit, or ICU, after weight loss surgery. However,
if it is not safe for the breathing tube to be removed,
or if your surgeon has other concerns about your progress,
you may require an ICU stay.
| FAQ |
Q. What is a nasogastric,
or NG tube? Will I have one of these tubes in
my nose after surgery? Will I have any tubes
or drains in my belly? A.
A nasogastric, or "NG" tube, is
a small flexible plastic tube that passes
through the nose into the stomach. Its purpose
is to drain out air and secretions from the
stomach pouch.
Our surgeons do not typically use
nasogastric tubes after surgery. However,
there is a small chance that you may have
one of these tubes for a short duration, if
your surgeon feels that it is necessary.
You will have a urinary catheter
inserted into your bladder while you are asleep.
This will usually be removed right after your
operation, or on the first day after surgery.
The tube is not painful, and most patients
barely notice that it's there. Removing the
tube is a quick and painless.
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