20 years ago Meryl Davies thought her life had ended when she woke up during a routine caesarean operation. Able to hear and feel what was happening Meryl was paralysed from the anaesthetic and unable to alert anyone.
Unbelievably this is something that has happened to Meryl twice and the stress she has been caused as a result of it has caused her a great amount of pain and unhappiness and she is still overcoming the problems caused by it, only in the last six weeks has she been able to travel on public transport because of severe claustrophobia.
Meryl is keen to raise the awareness of this problem, in order to prevent it ruining anyone else's life. Meryl said: “Now I just want to make sure that this won't happen to anyone else. I want anaesthetists to learn more about it as well to make sure there is no possibility of it happening, it really has ruined my life."
Anaesthetic Awareness is said to happen to 1 in 600 patients but is something that could be prevented according to Dr Michael Wang, a clinical psychologists with over 20 years experience in this area.
Dr Wang advises people to always ask to speak to the anaesthetist before surgery and if you are feeling particularly anxious be sure to let someone know. Dr Wang said: "Meryl's case is unusual in that she became aware twice, but her reaction and the stress that she has experienced is not uncommon."
Dr Wang urges doctors to try new techniques and wants anaesthetists to carry out more thorough checks on patients. In most cases if a patient becomes wakeful, no one knows about it. "One of the techniques that I have studied and I recommend is the Isolated Forearm Technique. This is where are tourniquet is put around the patients arm meaning that it is not affected by the paralysing muscle relaxing drug. It therefore allows the patient to move the arm if they needed to - thus alerting the anaesthetist to the fact that they are awake."
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