anxiety after minor surgery

[chriscomputer31]

I had laproscopic surgery to replace a ripped ligament in my knee I was awake initially but then after a bit went to sleep for the remainder of the surgery... Right after the surgery I was ok... but by a few days after the surgery I was distressed/anxious about what I might have said or done during the surgery and/or when I was waking up... during the couple of weeks after my recovery I was on pain medication and antibiotics when I slept I would dream that I was in surgery saying and or doing inappropriate things... since my memory was somewhat hazy from whatever they gave me in the hospital before/during the surgery... I'm not sure how much might be true... not to be gross but concerns such as... did I really pick my nose or scratch in an inappropriate place to scratch in the company of others... did I overshare completely irrelevant private information about my life ect... finally I just stopped taking the pain pills b/c I didn't seem to really sleep on them and just felt like I was in a stupper and I thought that maybe I just wasn't reacting well to them... after that I had a 3-4 week period where I just didn't sleep... barely 45 mins a night... I would sleep 10 mins then startle awake not realizing that I had been asleep... this would happen through the night and when I was awake trying to sleep I was just stressing about the surgery, not sleeping, and just my life ingeneral... which is actually not so bad... logically I knew I was being odd but the stressed/anxious emotions were just there regardless... I was very out of sorts and not myself I tried to explain it to the doctor but I didn't seem to be able to explain it well... I didn't want it to seem that I was just looking for attention... physically I recovered incredibly fast... much faster than it seems was expected... I was glad about that... I had expected and thought about the fact that the physical recovery might take time but was completely blindsided by the head issues I seemed to have to wade through... other info that might be relevent is that I had no history of depression, anxiety, sleep problems, or anything of that sort before the surgery in general I am a pretty together steady person... I'm ok now but I do sometimes think back about it and I wonder if what I have described something that is typical after such a minor surgery?  Do you think it might have been a weird reaction to the anestisia or medications? Any feed back would be appreciated.  I am curious if I should expect something like this in the future if I ever have to have surgery again.

[healingheart]

No worries.....trust me, doctors and nurses have seen everthing!  

I am 38 and have had 9 surgeries, some were minor.  Most recently, I had open heart surgery and was pretty sick.  I thought I was prepared for this last one, but I don't think anyone can be.  Every doctor, nurse, family member, etc...saw me in pretty bad shape and on tons of morphine.  In my mind alterering condition, all I coud think of was what state was  I in? I didn't know where the hospital was....and of course I asked everyone.  That was the least embarrassing thing I did...There were many more.  So trust me, anything you might have done could not have been that bad:)

What pain medication were you taking?  I have taken all kinds of pain medication after surgeries and some of the things you experienced are similar to what I have experienced.  Especially the sleeping...it is very common for me to sleep and wake suddenly and just be in a drug stupper.  This obviously got better once off the meds and as the anestisia wears off.  It can also be depressing when you are not feeling 100%....don't be so hard on yourself.

I do have anxiety attacks,  generally when under lots of stress, which can be difficult to manage at times.  I am certainly not a doctor but it sounds as if many of the situations you experienced were not out of the norm.   I hope this helps somewhat!!  Take Care :)