more cataract anesthesia

Greetings again,

I scheduled surgery, but it's a long wait. Everyone is so booked!

I finally found out why my doc wanted general anesthesia. Apparently
the sedative can have problems too.

He says that, with someone small and really nervous ("off the chart",
he said I was), it's hard to calm them down without giving them so
much sedative that they quit breathing. But, if less sedative is
used, the person's anxiety can break through the sedation so that they
wake up in the middle of the procedure disoriented and moves around in
a panic.
That sounds pretty bad if the doc is in the middle of a delicate part
of the work.

This has been mentioned on this list before:
(the URL is too long to paste in):
----------------
From: "David Robins, MD"
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:27:03 -0800
Subject: Re: Rough time with cataract
"Versed also does not work for everyone..... It is easy to get a
little too much - the patient falls asleep and suddenly wakes up and
jerks around, or even tries to get of the bed since he is disoriented.
Or, the are so sleepy the eye is rolling all around and they can't
control themselves."
----------------

I'm a pile of nerves and thinking maybe the general would interfere
less with the surgical outcome.

At any rate, do you all know whether what Robins desribes is still a
problem? Don't they clamp your head and body down when you're
sedated, or can you still twitch? Can you move enough to screw
things up?

thanks,
Liz D.
Indy (still in view, but soon to have new Alcon lenses)