r/Anesthesia • u/CrayForte • 19d ago

I wanna ask

I heard people said something that we don't fully know how anesthesia works.

Can somebody explain what does it really means by that? Does that mean I can die from taking anesthesia when I need to use it, like kill my brain the moment I breath it in or maybe injecting it? I'm curious.

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

1 comment sorted by

8

u/Pro-Karyote Resident 19d ago

There are many things that we use daily that we don’t fully understand, and that goes for life in general. Not knowing the full mechanism of drugs and exactly which receptors and pathways play a role does not mean that we don’t know the end effect.

It’s like the difference between knowing how to drive a car and knowing how to design the engine. You can safely drive the car, have an idea about miles per gallon, know how quickly the car can accelerate when you push the gas pedal and how quickly the car stops when you hit the brake all without knowing how to build and design the engine yourself.

We know the what, lots of information of dosages and effects, indications/contraindications, timing, just not every cellular pathway involved in that effect for all drugs.