3 ms·

Interesting, I believed that propofol alone is enough to not feel pain, I wasn't aware that opioids are also used at the same time.

• ghufran_syed 7y ago
  It’s not an analgesic (drug that reduces pain), but it’s true that if you give enough propofol, you will be so unconscious, you won’t feel pain. Sometimes, anesthesiologists will give opiates so that you don’t wake up abruptly in pain, or give benzodiazepines so you feel less anxious afterwards. Depends on what they did - if you had a dislocated shoulder, the pain is much less once it has been ‘reduced’ (Put back), so you probably wouldn’t have (too) much pain, relatively speaking, once you wake up. But if someone just cut open your abdomen, you will have lots of pain on waking, so makes more sense to give some opiate beforehand, to make your wake-up ‘nicer’. Propofol also tends to lower your blood pressure a lot, so some docs feel you can get the same level of sedation with less low blood pressure by giving a bit of benzodiazepines + propofol