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Dietician Sheela Seharawat

Respiratory Health Issues Post a Surgery

Surgeries can have a traumatic effect on the mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing on anybody. The procedure of surgeries entail anesthesia. Anesthesia is administered to the patient to control pain of the surgery and puts the patient to sleep. It can control breathing pattern, heart rate, heart rhythm, blood pressure, blood flow, etc. The effect of anesthesia lingers on even after the surgery has ended. One of such side effects of anesthesia is respiratory problems. Usually, post-surgery most patients suffer from respiratory difficulties. Surgery has a great impact on the functions of the lungs. Rest after surgery makes the patients inactive, so they don’t breathe as deeply. Thus, the pattern of exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide is disturbed. In order to heal after the surgery, the body demands adequate supply of oxygen.

During all stages of sleep, if the breathing pattern is heavy, the brain lacks two vital chemicals needed by the brain, namely, carbon dioxide and oxygen. Lack of carbon dioxide in the brain is called cerebral hypocapnia which causes the nerve cells to become overexcited and reduces brain functions. The brain uses 20% of body’s oxygen supply to be alive. Deprivation of oxygen in brain handicaps the cells of the brain to metabolize glucose, and therefore cannot convert glucose into energy. The sedative anesthesia has a chemical control of hypercapnia and/or hypoxia.

Usually, after surgery, patients experience synergistic ventilator depression which slows down breathing and influences the pattern of exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Fatigued respiratory muscle and hypercapnia can cause severe cases of pulmonary inflammation and obstruct the airway passage. In such situations, the patients gasp for breath and inhale shallow breaths. The tiny air sacs of the alveoli are flattened and stick together. Holding in deep breaths fills air into the little air sacs which enable them to inflate back to their ordinary size. Deep breathing is recommended to relieve the patient from pain, stress and to maintain a balance of exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. At times, doctors consider keeping the patients in post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) for improving the condition of their respiratory organs.