I have a question for those who have had castration surgery. I am in my 70s. Before last year my only surgeries were circumcision at birth and tonsillectomy in the 50s. A year ago I had open heart surgery to repair/replace valves. What I found was at times, especially at night, thoughts of death would become very close and a very few times even to suicide. I requested talking to a shrink and she concluded I was nowhere near suicidal. I have way too much family, dogs, friends and still have professionall ideas to pursue to be suicidal. Those thoughts diminished fairly quickly and now are a memory. Then three months ago I had in and out surgery to open a nasal passage and those same thoughts came back and have again receded.

My question is if those thoughts just go with any type of surgery or are birthed from stopping the heart and maybe never go away completely.

Thanks.

I have had surgery several times under general anesthesia. A few procedures under heavy sedation ( orchiectomy and several colonoscopies). I must confess, I enjoy the process, the drugs, and the relaxed feeling I have, when I wake up. It all has to how my body deals with the drugs.

reading about your experiences, you ruled out mental problems. Your depression and suicidal thoughts seem to be brought on by anesthesia. maybe talking to the doc prior to any procedure about it, they can chance up the meds.

I'd agree, talk to the docs, especially ask to talk with the anesthesiologist. They are very aware that people respond to drugs differently and sometimes in strange ways... If they know you have issues that seem related to particular drugs or methods then they should be willing to try a different method the next time...

A random thought - I am neither a shrink nor an MD, but is there any chance that the feelings weren't so much from the drugs, but instead some sort of mental reaction to being intubated or otherwise given the anesthesia? At least for the open chest they probably did some pretty heavy duty stuff... I don't know if that is a thing that happens, but might be worth raising the question...

Definitely have the discussion ahead of time, so they have time to plan what they want to do... If you can find out just what they gave you for the surgeries you had problems with, or at least pointers to when / where it was done, that will probably be helpful. (it should be in your EHR if you have one)

I know that having gone through hell getting off the opioids that they got me addicted to in rehab, I will not allow the docs to use them on me, so they do other things...

As a FWIW, the first time my GF had carpal tunnel surgery the anesthesia they gave her didn't work very well, so she had a lot of discomfort. So the second time they gave her Ketamine as a general - and she said her mental health issues (mostly depression + anxiety) totally went away for the next few days... (and now she is very frustrated about not being able to find a way to do it as a more lasting thing....)

WheelyFixed

You can just Google "Heart surgery depression" and you'll get a lot of info

https://heartsurgeryinfo.com/emotional- ... t-surgery/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557565/

Thanks all. I never would have thought of anethesia, but that would explain the same feelings with open heart and minor nasal surgery - which is why I was curious if other surgeries could cause the same. For what it is worth, my surgeon thanked me for bringing up the psychological part. She said that surgeons were like mechanics really focused on doing the surgery part right and it was good to br reminded there was an emotional part also (read Wolf-pup's links).

I certainly had some serious mental health issues after open chest surgery, but had plenty of reasons for them, considering that it was the surgery that put me in the wheelchair w/ an iatrogenic (Dr. caused) ischemic SCI... This was a major catastrophic change of life to put it mildly.... In addition I had several days on a vent in the Cardiac Intensive Care unit, w/ who knows what sort of meds being used to keep me out. (I have some vague memories of VERY strange dreams...) Once I landed in rehab, they put me on a fentanyl patch, which ended up w/ me getting hooked on the crap... There are definite things in the literature about opioids having bad effects on mood, etc...

I had some "peer mentor" support from the local SCI group, but refused to have anything to do with the formal shrinks... They also tried getting me to do a therapy thing, but I felt that the therapist didn't have the foggiest notion of what I was going through when she kept comparing my SCI to a 'death' - sure, except you get to bury your dear departed and while missing them, get on w/ life... W/ an SCI its more like the DD is strapped to your back and whops you off the head every few minutes....

I really didn't get my $#!T back together (to the extent that I have ) until I decided that the fentanyl was doing nothing for me but ruining my life, and did a week of hell going off it cold turkey...

I don't know what you might have been on for pain killers, but I know that docs seem to have no problem handing out opioid scrips (I've had several times when I've been given one even after saying I didn't want it and wouldn't take it) and that opioids are NASTY shit....

WheelyFixed

The shrink I was referred to went thru Q and A. When the answer came back not suicidal, that ended it Period. That left me curious about the thoughts. Oh well, there still is the EA to pick up where formal medicine leaves off.

If you feel you have unresolved feelings/questions, you can find a real shrink who you are comfortable with to talk through anything. Thoughts of death or anything else. They can be good sounding boards. They can maybe help you look at things from different perspectives.

Depending on how strongly you feel and if your insurance covers it.

I'm guessing you talked to a hospital psychologist which I imagine covers basics but isn't someone you'd want to go to in real life.

Although if you are just feeling philosophical, EA is a great place to kick around ideas. I don't know that any of us are qualified to give mental health advice, we do the best we can