Day of Surgery
You will likely have one of the following types of anesthetics:
Monitored Anesthesia Care
Monitored Anesthesia Care (MAC) is often used for patients receiving same-day or outpatient surgery that involves relatively minor procedures. It is sedation and pain medicine combined with local anesthesia (numbing medicine), and it can be used for diagnostic or therapeutic procedures. This anesthetic is titrated to a level that preserves spontaneous breathing and airway reflexes. There is less physiological disturbance with MAC anesthesia, although all forms of modern anesthesia is safe.
General Anesthesia
A state of total sleep. This includes a complete lack of memory and awareness to sight, sound and feeling. General Anesthesia is most often accomplished with medicine given through your IV, followed by some type of anesthesia gas added to oxygen to keep you completely asleep and pain free. This technique often includes the use of some type of device to support breathing while surgery proceeds. You will be monitored the entire time until you are safely awake in the recovery area.
Regional Anesthesia
With regional anesthesia, your anesthesia professional will make an injection near a cluster of nerves to numb the area of your body that requires surgery. You may remain awake, or you may be given a sedative, either way you will have less pain from the surgery. There are several kinds of regional anesthesia; the three most common are spinal anesthesia, epidural anesthesia, and peripheral nerve blocks.