Newest Posts On Askapatient

http://www.askapatient.com/ is an excellent place to obtain TRUE stories about Versed, the truly horrible effects of it, the sneaky way it is administered and the problems subsequent to being injected. We are NOT all imagining this. We are having the same symptoms. Many people are very appreciative of others having the same problems, as health care providers are trying to put a spin on this drug and claim it is actually beneficial and that we are just imaging all this, mass hysteria or something. There is a REASON this drug is used without consent... There is a REASON that medical workers don't want us to find out how bad it is, and are determined not to let anything bad be said about it. The REASON has nothing at all to do with patient care...
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This one is from 7/9/11 and is a 50 year old man. "The rating is a 1 which means that Versed is no good and they would not recommend this drug!
REASON GIVEN; "colonoscopy"
SIDE EFFECTS; "Anger, depression, memory issues, unable to return to work the next day.
COMMENTS; "Was flat out told that I'd be awake and responsive, not 'out.' Was not told of the amnesia. I was shocked and then angry when the process was complete and I had no recall."
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This one is from a 62 year old female on 7/11/11 The rating is a 1 once again. Here's what she says;
REASON GIVEN; "Cataract Surgery"
SIDE EFFECTS; "Smallest dose possible (so they said) was administered twice one week apart for cataract surgeries. Five days after the first administration I started experiencing obsessive thinking, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, and weight loss. I went to bed anxious, with pounding heart and difficulty breathing and woke up depressed. The slightest thing made me angry. All of this was SO unlike me. I could not control my thinking, something I'd never experienced. I felt as though I'd been turned into someone else, and I had no idea what caused it. It was horrible."
COMMENTS; "Fortunately I am mostly back to normal (8 weeks later), except for lingering memory issues which I hope will eventually resolve. I will NEVER take Versed again. I just hope medical profession takes me seriously and doesn't decide to stick it in my IV anyway. Nothing would surprise me. THANK YOU to all the people who posted here, helping me to understand the reason behind the dramatic and terrifying change in my mental state."
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Does this really sound like a safe drug? How many more of us have to go through this experience with Versed for the medical people to LISTEN TO US? Too many of us are having these problems after Versed for it to be a coincidence. We are not all going on Facebook and arbitrarily deciding that Versed is a bad drug. We are talking about it because it IS a bad drug for way too many of us. We are comparing notes, not indulging in self pity. We are looking for answers because the medical community is guarding this drug with their life! Claiming that we are suffering from some kind of delusional thinking makes us think that medical providers are delusional themselves! How can you deny something that so many people are experiencing? We can't ALL be wrong, now can we?

Dr. Kevin's E-mail and Horses

Dr. Kevin always has such fascinating reading on his site. As I was reading through the comments here Private practice medicine will soon become extinct I found the following paragraph in one of the comments. I love it! As a horse owner I am well aware of this particular "problem." I know how to get the message out when medical care is sub standard... Whether it's my horse or ME!

"Out of necessity, I do send clients to the nearest veterinary school center when I’m not available (funerals, CE, root canal). Not popular, and do this with the wrong person and you’ll probably lose both the client and all her friends. The horse-owning population is in communication to an alarming extent. One wrong move, it’s all over FB, IM and the bulletin boards, and you’re toast."

LOL That's right, we horse owners are "in communication to an alarming extent." While we are generally more concerned with our precious horse than ourselves, we do get injured on a regular basis, horses being what they are. I talk about what happened to me, show them my arm and how my fingers and hand don't work so well any more. I name names... I talk a LOT about how my anesthesia nurse assaulted me, and my reaction to Versed as well. Remember that song "I Heard It Through The Grapevine?" Horse people have a great "grapevine" and we're all mostly real local. I sure hope that I was "the wrong person" to treat like dirt.

Propofol vs Versed/Midazolam

A lot of medical workers are talking about Propofol. They say that the patient is (variously) asleep, or has amnesia. With sleep, you are not amnestic, you are unaware. You are not generally walking, talking and interacting with others, obeying orders and so forth. If somebody should come upon you while you are sleeping, they would probably know that you are asleep. Unless you are a medical worker. You have AMNESIA according to them, you are not asleep. I guess. These people seem to interchange the words SEDATION, SLEEP and AMNESIA.

Also they are having a problem with me pointing out that "patient cooperation" means abject obedience. Funny how that works. Sedation doesn't mean what normal people think it does, sleeping isn't what we all thought that it was and amnesia is used to describe states of being that do not apply. I know, it's clear as mud...

Which all leads me to this study... Propofol versus midazolam for conscious sedation g... [Endoscopy. 2000] - PubMed result

Here we have an article which describes "patient cooperation" as being much better with Propofol than with Versed. Does that sound like the patient is asleep? How obedient are you when you are asleep? They are describing AMNESIA once again and ominously that creepy "patient cooperation." Don't trust any of it. Unless and until these medical workers can use terminology which is CONCISE and DESCRIPTIVE of the true state of your being and your mind, I wouldn't trust them with any kind of "sedation" drug. They are obviously lying through their teeth about the true nature of Propofol AND Versed/Midazolam. We are not "asleep" with these drugs. We are not "sedated" as in serene, we are mindless zombies. We are capable of feeling and living through torture, but not capable of resistance. We are NOT cooperating in the true sense of the word, we are cravenly obeying their every command. Cooperation denotes a joint effort, a willing participation. Not possible if you are drugged into obedience. I didn't willingly cooperate with anything. I was forcefully drugged into submission.

I would be very leery of accepting Propofol...

I put this post up years ago.  Since then I have had a recent experience with surgery in regards to my daughter's broken clavicle.  Given the choices, we (anesthesiologist, myself and my 17 year old daughter) decided to go with Propofol as the sole agent.  As it turns out, Propofol is NOTHING like Versed.  I cautiously recommend that you speak to your anesthesia provider about this option.  It worked like a miracle for my daughter.  No brain function loss, no long delay in the PACU, it was as if she never had surgery.  Believe me I was very critical in my examination of my girl, and I could see zero ill effects, and she stated there were none.  (updated on 19Nov16)

A Study Refuting CRNA Claim

On WWW.NURSE-ANESTHESIA.ORG one of the posters claims that people are looking forward to being oblivious of their surroundings. This person feels that most (all?) people want amnesia. Well, here's a study that shows the difference between the PATIENTS reality and that of the nurses. They can be diametrically opposed as we see here.

This is the site; Critical Care Full text A prospective randomised pilot study of sedation regimens in a general ICU population: a reality-based medicine study

Here is the quote "Our recommendations for future sedation studies include the use of measures other than the sedation score to evaluate the adequacy of sedation. Studies conducted in our unit suggest that patients surviving ICU are disturbed by having no memory of that period of their life [23]. Thus, what appears to medical and nursing staff to be an ideal sedative agent, in particular more recently available short-acting anaesthetic agents which provide titratable sedation, but by nature of their very short duration of action allow patients to be heavily sedated without the risk of significant accumulation, may encourage staff to oversedate patients. Despite the patients being 'well-sedated', they may later be disturbed by having no memory whatsoever of their time in ICU. This is an area of ICU practice that requires considerable further study."

"Studies...suggest that patients surviving the ICU are disturbed by having no memory of that period of their life." Wouldn't this be exactly the opposite of what JKW opines? Here's another of the same thing "Despite the patients being 'well-sedated', (this would be according to the medical people and would be THEIR opinion) they (patients) may later be disturbed by having no memory whatsoever of their time in the ICU." This pretty much puts paid to the insufferably arrogant claims by anesthesia about us wanting, desiring and begging for amnesia don't you think? These patients are DISTURBED by their lack of recall. If you are an anesthesia provider, don't you dare claim that since the lack of recall is SHORTER in procedural patients that it isn't just as disturbing to them.

Notice also the "may encourage staff to oversedate patients." Of course it is. No question about it. Given that they all seem to feel that Versed is the most wonderful drug in the world and has zero side effects, what's to stop them? It makes their job so much easier to take care of amnesia afflicted zombies instead of relating to their patients and actually caring for them. FYI there is a law on the books which if followed would put a stop to this... Which is that chemical restraint cannot be used for the convenience of staff. They always always claim that it's for the patients own good, that the patients want and demand it etc. Not exactly... It seems that for the most part Versed is for the ease and convenience of staff.

Patient Cooperation/Abject Obedience

Recently on WWW.NURSE-ANESTHESIA.ORG an alleged anesthesia nurse took me to task regarding the "patient cooperation" component of Versed/Midazolam. Here's the quote; "Do you REALLY think we give patients Versed so we can have "abject obedience" from the patient? Seriously? WTF. Again - absurd statements like that give you ZERO credibility."

And yet, if you use your search engine and look for Versed/Midazolam+patient cooperation you will find study after study and report after report on just that. I have "zero credibility" for claiming this, but this is exactly what happened to me! I was given Versed and THEN when I couldn't resist them any more, they CLAIM, IN WRITING, that I gave consent for g/a (which I had vigorously declined) by "NOT OBJECTING." It's all in writing folks, there is no way around this one. Aaron told this laughable story to the nursing board AND the board of Health and Welfare. My CRNA of course omitted any mention of Versed OR sedation. It's against the law to 1) give me sedation in any form if I have declined it. and 2) It is illegal to get consent for anything after sedating the patient. and 3) It's illegal to get consent in the negative, I.E. by the patient being unable to object. The CRNA JWK is in complete denial and is attacking me as if that will prove their point. It's another one of those Alice in Wonderland conversations with the mad hatter.

My statement isn't absurd. I WAS given Versed to gain compliance with yet MORE drugs and procedures which I had also declined. Versed was sneaked into my IV with the "simple muscle relaxant" line. What else could Aaron do? I had declined sedation, so he had to do something to get me to do his bidding. Aaron was trying to give me amnesia (which was never mentioned until well after surgery) and he needed to get that "patient cooperation." None of this was for my benefit at all. I still wonder what he was thinking! Did his little fantasy lead him to believe that I would APPRECIATE him doing whatever the hell he wanted to me, against my will? Really? Was he so concerned about his 800 bucks that he wasn't going to let me get away with demanding to go home AMA under the circumstances? (sedation and g/a) Is he conditioned to believe that he "knows whats best" despite all evidence to the contrary? Despite the howls of denial from JWK and all the rest of them, this IS what happened to me. Their denials give them that "zero credibility" that they would like to assign to me...

There are even more "absurd" accusations on WWW.NURSE-ANESTHESIA.ORG, you need to go read them! It's pathetic.

Lighter Note

We Versed haters have been told we are "tin-foil hat people." Here's an article about, Ta DA, tin-foil hat people! Gotta love it. I wonder if there was a government grant for the people at Berkeley to do this study? LOL

http://berkeley.intel-research.net/arahimi/helmet/

I Posted On This Thread...

How to minimize the costs of surgery I'm in the comments under "Jackie." I am reproducing the reply in its entirety from Dr. Kevins web page
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Hexanchus June 6, 2011 at 6:34 pm

Jackie,

It’s actually not that hard to do – you simply write “I do NOT consent to the use of general anesthesia or sedation of any form without my specific written prior approval.” on the surgical/anesthesia consent form. Now that you have established the ground rules, you can have a dialog on what possible anesthesia interventions might be applicable under specific circumstances, what the potential risks and benefits are, and decide on a modified consent based on specific triggers or events based on what you feel comfortable with.

It helps if you have discussed it with your surgeon ahead of time and can tell the anesthesia provider that. You can also do the same with any other procedure/intervention such as intubation or catheterization if you wish.

FWIW, I agree with with you on the overuse of sedation (and will add amnesic drugs such as midazolam to that). Bottom line, they are going to want to do what’s easiest for the OR team – not necessarily what’s best for the patient. Unfortunately, if you leave it up to them, most providers will revert to doing what they are used to and most comfortable with – that’s just human nature. I think that if providers would truly take the time to discuss the risks and potential side effects of these drugs, more patients would opt out.

With the advent of better regional anesthesia techniques, the real need for G/A, along with it’s inherent risks, should be significantly reduced. In India, for example, they have done well over 1000 successful open heart procedures of various types (CABG, valve repair, etc.) on awake, non-intubated patients using thoracic epidural anesthesia. They’ve been doing it there for years – unfortunately it hasn’t caught on here yet….. I believe that areas like this is another place where both the costs and the risks to the patient could be reduced.page.

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This post is exactly what I had imagined would happen. I told my surgeon that I was uninterested in general anesthesia for my extremity surgery. I explained fully my previous surgeries, my paradoxical reactions to g/a drugs AND the fact that I couldn't afford this level of intervention. I wanted regional anesthetic ONLY! My surgeon claims he only heard the affordability part, but even that didn't register. He stated afterwards that he only works on unconscious patients. He didn't reveal that to me, or in any way suggest that what I wanted was not important to him. So while I thought that my surgeon and I were on the same page, the opposite was true. I expected my surgeon to make sure that the anesthesiologist (an MD, I never even heard of a CRNA, nor would I have allowed one to be my anesthetist) followed my instructions. The opposite was true. My CRNA also disregarded every single thing I said to him, and the rest of the staff shockingly went along with the whole scheme. Not one single person told me, or in any way indicated that they were not in favor of forcing me to accept way more intervention than I had clearly outlined. In my opinion, the people who work in a medical setting are so intent on doing things "their way" that they totally disregard anything the patient says. Not one person defended my wishes or informed me that they were going to dismiss me in such an egregious way. Yet *I* am the control freak...

The "sedation" I am talking about IS Versed! Here this poster says that Versed is overused. Thank you! However as a drug to insure that the patient accepts everything that the money grubbing lazy people in the medical treatment facility want, it is absolutely perfect! Not only are the patients stricken with an abnormal desire to obey, they usually have amnesia and can't argue about whether or not they agreed to things, and they can't know that it was all completely unecessary...

Since there was no anesthesia/general anesthetic/sedation "informed consent" AT ALL, I was unable to cross out the things that I didn't want. My CRNA even states that I "agreed" to all kinds of stuff that I had no intention of having. I said NO! I got it ALL anyway. Course there were all kinds of excuses as to why that was. They were all lies, but it doesn't matter.

If you look at my post pertaining to how to avoid getting Versed, you will see that some of what this poster says are also what I am advising. However this isn't foolproof! My own sister wrote in big red letters that she wasn't to get Versed and also wrote on her arm where the IV went, not to give her Versed. They agreed and of course she got Versed.

How I wish it was as simple as this poster says it is! I have been pretty much hysterical about medical care ever since my ORIF Distal Radius reduction debacle. I have been very worried about open heart surgery, (or similar) my paradoxical reactions to anesthesia drugs and now Versed, and have even advised my husband to wait until I turn blue before getting me any medical attention. Now this person says that this type of surgery is done in other countries without all of the above. There is hope!? How do you do open heart surgery on a patient whose body fights on, even after being cold cocked by drugs? I understand the suc. etc. but what about when I wake up fighting and in restraints? (I believe that part is called emergence delirium and I think that is why my jerk of a CRNA gave me 4 mls of additional Versed AFTER THE DAMN SURGERY WAS OVER!) Wouldn't I damage myself?

ONE SINGLE CRNA with a syringe of poison caused this kind of ongoing anxiety and the rest of them have rallied behind him and further damaged my trust. Nice going nurses.