Quote:
Originally Posted by kalina82  All dogs/cats no matter what the size need to be tubed for surgery. It keeps an airway open at all times. If that tube wasn't there and your puppy stopped breathing there would be no way to properly breath for the pup and keep him alive. Then while the vet is scrubbed in for surgery, and the pup isn't breathing, a stressed out tech would have to put a tube in with the dog on its back during the surgery and probably cause damage to the trachea that way. |
It is actually put in and hooked up to a respirator not just there to keep airway open. And a stressed out tech should not be doing it.
general anesthesia paralyzes the body and renders the patient unconscious. When I say paralyze, I mean the vast majority of the muscles in the body are unable to move. The heart is one exception, as it will continue to beat on its own throughout the surgery, but the diaphragm, the muscle that makes it possible to fill the lungs with air, is unable to move. If the muscles that help fill the lungs can't move, then you are unable to breathe.
If you have ever gotten the "wind knocked out of you" and have that scary feeling of not being able to take a breath, then you've experience a very brief paralysis of the diaphragm muscles.
So, to make surgery possible, the lungs have to be filled with air so they can do their job. This is accomplished by putting a tube, called an endotracheal tube, into the mouth and down into the airway of the patient, a process called intubation. The end of the tube that is left outside of the mouth is connected to a ventilator, which provides breaths to the lungs. The lungs continue to function normally, but the ventilator does the work of the paralyzed muscles.
Once the surgery is over and the anesthesia has worn off, the tube is removed and the muscles of the body return to their normal function.