Understandably, a lot of patients are leary of being put to sleep. Those guys in the picture on the left can be a little scary. You have heard horror stories of people not waking up or of being awake the whole time but unable to move and being operated on. The reality is that yes, this sort of thing can occur, but these type of events are exceptionally unusual. Bottom line, and I got these numbers from an anesthesia colleague,  if you are an otherwise healthy person without significant heart and lung disease, your chances of dying from an anesthetic are about 1:12,000,000. One in 12 million is the same risk you run of being killed driving a car each day. It happens, but the chances are pretty good you are going  to be one of the other 11,999,999. The reason folks have trouble while under anesthesia is if they have coronary artery disease. Well, in my practice, I really don’t do a lot of surgery on folks with bad hearts. If your ticker is bad enough that your PCP won’t clear you for surgery, you have bigger concerns than drooping eyelids or wrinkles and I’m not operating on you. So, the converse of that is, that if I want to put you to sleep to do your surgery, you are a very healthy person and a very low anesthetic risk. Lee Corbett, MD www.CorbettCosmeticSurgery.com 502.721.0330

All posts on this blog are authored by Dr. Lee Corbett who specializes in cosmetic plastic surgery. He treats provides Frankfort,KY cosmetic plastic surgery, Lexington, KY cosmetic plastic surgery and Elizabethtown, Ky cosmetic plastic sugery.