I had minor knee surgery nearly 3 weeks ago under a general anesthesia. (This wasn't supposed to happen, but I was misinformed and mislead right before surgery) Over the 2 weeks after surgery, I spent all but 5 days in bed, unable to wake up completely and suffeing from dementia-type symptoms and hallucinations. I am currently on 7 psychotropic meds. After a trip to the ER during the end of my "episodes", I was told that I was suffering from a negative reaction to the anesthesia.
Other than Bipolar Disorder, I also experience some dementia-like symptoms (short-term memory loss, speech halting) due to my bodies inability to adequately absord vitamin B12 into the bloodstream. I now feel like my brain has "aged" 3-5 years in a matter of weeks. I pray this is temporary, but with my limited capacity, it's unlikely.
Any one else have a similar experience?
It hasn't happened to me personally. Except perhaps when I was put under general anesthesia 19 times for ECT -- my brain was certainly altered in a negative way, for several years. I'm still not sure I have fully recovered and that was 1996. But it may be the ECT and not the anesthesia. But I have definitely seen it happen in friends and relatives when they had major surgery and were under for several hours.