13 ms·

After simple dental surgery, William lost his ability to form new memories

202 points by tchalla 11y ago

Foy 11y ago
>he wakes up every morning believing he is still in Germany in 2005, waiting to visit the dentist. Without a record of new experiences, the passing of time means nothing to him. Today, he only knows that there is a problem because he and his wife have written detailed notes on his smartphone, in a file labelled “First thing – read this”. Literally 50 First Dates...
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  Much like the movie, yes, though in her case it was a daily, not an hourly, thing. It's nice that the film seems to be based on a real-life condition and portrays it fairly accurately.
  - jedberg 11y ago
    I mentioned this to a psychologist and she laughed at me very hard. She was a professor and said that she uses the movie 50 First Dates in her class -- by having them write down everything that is wrong. She says it's so horribly inaccurate that it makes for a good long discussion.
    - Foy 11y ago
      Out of curiosity what are some of the things wrong with it?
      - DanBC 11y ago
        This page doesn't like the film, and lists some mistakes, but also lists some of the accurate bits. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychologist-the-movies/201212/amnesia-in-50-first-dates https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychologist-the-movies...
        Foy 11y ago
        The only real "issue" that article seems to take with the movies was that (A) it used a term that doesn't exist to describe a condition that does have an actual name and (B) it was a cheesy romcom. But I mean, do you really expect any Adam Sandler movie to get to the real grit of living with a terrible disease?
      - jedberg 11y ago
        We didn't get into it deeply, but apparently the biggest issue is that it wouldn't be a daily thing. The recycle period is usually measured in minutes.
- RexRollman 11y ago
  His daily reaction to the appearence of his aging wife, and his own aging appearence, must be interesting.
  - rev_bird 11y ago
    That's the part about this I'm so hung up on -- that this poor guy not only has this crippling condition, but that he has to come to terms with it every hour and a half, forever.
- harryjo 11y ago
  Memento
iopq 11y ago
This is the condition that was described in Memento. Really fascinating stuff. It makes me want to keep notes on everything, because most people rely on their memory for a lot of things. When we forget something we are frustrated "Oh darn, I forgot it again!". Imagine not being able to remember anything at all...
- userbinator 11y ago
  Imagine not being able to remember anything at all... ...including the fact that you can't remember anything? That would certainly be scary.
  - rusabd 11y ago
    I once lost a memory for couple hours - I was fully aware that I don't remember anything
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
exizt88 11y ago
A comparably horrifying experience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing
yoha 11y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9810025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9810025
noblethrasher 11y ago
In a talk that I attended, Steve Wozniak mentioned that he studied a lot of psychology when he returned to the university after leaving Apple. He thinks that he may have been the first person to have come up with idea that we lose our memories with our teeth, and that researchers later discovered a link between the loss of our early autobiographical memories and the loss of our baby teeth.
- rayalez 11y ago
  He says in his autobiography that he was in a plane crash. That was the reason for leaving apple. He suffered from memory loss, so probably that is the reason for his interest in psychology. From wiki: "Wozniak sustained severe face and head injuries, including losing a tooth, and also suffered for five weeks after the crash from anterograde amnesia, the inability to create new memories. He had no memory of the crash, and did not remember his name in the hospital or the things he did after he was released from the hospital."
  - MichaelCrawford 11y ago
    Was that in Scotts Valley? Ive flown over that strip (as a passenger). the neighbors forced it to close, the strip is still there but there are big red Xs painted all over it. I expect its intended for use in emergencies. I understand he didnt set the trim, which adjusts the balance of the plane for the distribution of passenger weight.
    - Stratoscope 11y ago
      Yes, Woz's crash was at the Santa Cruz Skypark airport in Scotts Valley. He was flying his V-tail Bonanza, a notoriously tricky airplane to fly: http://www.cultofmac.com/275742/wonderful-rides-steve-wozniak/ http://www.cultofmac.com/275742/wonderful-rides-steve-woznia... I used to love flying into Scotts Valley back in the '70s and '80s. It had a great picnic spot next to the field, and a scary approach when the landing direction was toward the southeast: The base leg (last turn before final approach) took you right toward a big tree-covered hill and you had to scoot around it a bit to avoid the trees. Most of the runway is long gone, with houses at the north end and a park in the middle. There is a bit of the old strip left at the south end - but it would have to be a real emergency to even consider trying to land on it. You can see the old airport in Google Earth if you use View/Historical Imagery and go all the way back to 10/1991. The south end of the runway is near Mt Hermon Road and Kings Village Road in Scotts Valley.
HappyTypist 11y ago
Most people took a little bit of time to get familiar with smartphone UIs, especially for someone who's jumping from no smart phone at all to the latest version of iOS and Android. I wonder if he has been slowly learning how to use a smartphone like the other condition, or if he has to rediscover the UI every time.
- bashinator 11y ago
  I believe the memory used to retain skills is separate from other types of memory. There was a famous patient, Henry Molaison[0] who was the first person to suffer this condition and participated in some really amazing research. He was able to learn new skills, albeit slowly. "His ability to form long-term procedural memories was intact; thus he could, for example, learn new motor skills, despite not being able to remember learning them." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison
  - timcederman 11y ago
    If you read the article, it says the patient mentioned can't form procedural memories.
csomar 11y ago
The doctors initially suspected that he’d reacted badly to the anaesthetic, causing a brain haemorrhage – yet they failed to find evidence of injury. So he was discharged with the mystery still hanging over him, and the family moved back to England, where he was referred to the office of Gerald Burgess, a clinical psychologist in Leicester. Scouring the medical literature, he found five similar cases of mysterious memory loss without brain damage. Although none occurred during a trip to the dentist, they do seem to follow other periods of physiological stress during a medical emergency. That doesn't prove that the anaesthetic isn't the root cause. The article title sounds link-baity.
- cristianpascu 11y ago
  Not only link-baity, but also blaming the doctor. Large percentage of the large percentage of people who won't read the article will move away with a inconsciouss (at least) fear of medical interventions.
  - bitJericho 11y ago
    Well yeah all medical interventions have can have side effects; they should be considered.
    - Tyr42 11y ago
      But they should be considered proportionally to their probability times severity, and in this case, the probability is small enough to be a rounding error, so you really should worry about other things first, like getting killed when driving to the dentist's.
      - logicchains 11y ago
        According to [1], medical errors are actually the third leading cause of death in the United States, so it's hardly a small probability. 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/leahbinder/2013/09/23/stunning-news-on-preventable-deaths-in-hospitals/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/leahbinder/2013/09/23/stunning-n...
ioquatix 11y ago
There is a Japanese movie about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Housekeeper_and_the_Professor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Housekeeper_and_the_Profes... I highly recommend it, especially if you are a mathematician.
bite_victim 11y ago
Any chance he suffered a profound trauma being under surgery? I imagine an utter fear of surgery and this could have been triggered by something really insignificant like a small tingling or just the thought of surgery, of a foreign element cutting deep in your tooth canal. That, amplified over and over (he might even have lost conscience if his jaw was being held in place by a device -- the doctor wouldn't have known it this way) could have given birth of some kind of mechanism of memory wipe, sort of like the one victims of rape or horrible accidents develop as a self defence mechanism to (not?) cope with what just happened. Only in this case it went terribly wrong.
rayalez 11y ago
Damaging my mind is my biggest fear. I had a simple surgery a year ago(shoulder arthroscopy), and I specifically said that I don't agree to general anesthesia or any kind of sedatives, because even a small probability of a small brain damage isn't worth it for me. Doctors tried to push me into accepting the general anesthesia, saying that it's the only option(and that we lose brain cells every day really, so who cares). I went to a different clinic where a doctor agreed to do the surgery under local anesthetics and without sedation without any problems. Said someting along the lines "don't worry, man, your brain is gonna be fine." He failed to mention that local anesthesia can also lead to neurotoxicity, and I was too ignorant to know about it(for some reason I assumed that local anesthetics are harmless, and didn't do my research). During the surgery I felt the symptomps(dizziness, difficulty speaking), consistent with neurotoxicity caused by local anesthetics. I don't notice any permanent damage, though I doubt that I'd be able to tell. 6 months after the surgery I have developed tinnitus, but I can't tell if it's connected to it or not. Anyway, my point is that no way in hell would I agree to the surgery if I'd have known the risks. Also, before that, doctors pushed me into unnecessarily taking general anesthesia for a routine procedure. They convinced me that it can't be harmful, and I was too young and socially awkward to ask more questions or argue. I also fear dental anesthetics. There is research indicating that they can cause neurotoxocity. I can easily sit through filling regular cavities(with a dental laser it really isn't that painful), but I'm not sure what I would do if I have to get root canal. I would take any option over anesthesia, but I don't know of any alternative. Some doctors say that it's just an irrational fear. But given that there's some research saying that even dental anesthesia can cause neurotixicity, I'm not sure what's so irrational about not wanting my brain cells to die. My brain is what matters to me the most in the world, far more than anything else, it has infinite value, because that's literally "me", so even small chance of small damage is worth avoiding at all cost(in my value system). It's infuriating how casual doctors are about such risks, especially in cases when they can be avoided. I understand taking necessary risks when it's a life-saving surgery, but when you have alternatives, I think patient should be able to make an informed choice.
- DanBC 11y ago
  The "irrationality"[1] is the weight you put on the unknown risk of brain-harm from anaesthesia, while not appearing to assign much risk to how you get there. How likely is it that you're going to suffer brain injury in your day to day life versus from anaesthetic? [1] irrational is probably a not useful word here. You have real fear of real things.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
atarian 11y ago
>local anesthetic Local anesthetic is pretty much just a pain killer... it's not supposed to knock you out like GA (general anesthetic). I wonder if the article got the term right.
vvpan 11y ago
A few comments in this thread mention "genera anaesthesia side effects" and long-term problems. I have never heard of this and a quick wikipedia/google search is not bringing up good source on the topic. Is this substantiated or another "vaccines cause autism" kind of thing?
- VieElm 11y ago
  There was recent news on the detrimental effects of general anesthesia has on the very young and old. Apparently it can be neurotoxic but healthy adults don't seem to have long lasting problems.
  - __z 11y ago
    A family friend of mine went under general anesthesia and woke up senile. He was in his late-70s, early-80s at the time. Lives in a nursing home now. Once in a while can have some moments of somewhat clarity but they only last for a minute or two.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  It seems possible, due to what is used for general anesthesia. However, the person in the story was not given general anesthesia, only a local anesthetic.
- imaginenore 11y ago
  General anaesthesia is actually somewhat dangerous. Your chance of dying from anaesthesia is around 1 in 100,000 - 185,000. While it may seem like a safe number, it's orders of magnitude higher than winning a major lottery. That number also doesn't include medical fuckups during anaesthesia, like overdose, airway obstruction. In that case the number shoots up to 1:2500 - 1:5000. http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/1/95.long http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/1/95.long 1.5 people in 1000 wake up, so the pain shock alone can kill you. Dental anaesthesia is known to kill, around 2 children per year. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/dental-sedation-child-deaths_n_1671604.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/dental-sedation-chi...
djfm 11y ago
If no link can be found between the dental surgery and the memory-forming loss, could it be that there is actually no link? Have any other hypotheses been researched besides the surgery?
- imaginenore 11y ago
  Exactly. It can be just a coincidence. A blood clot, undetected cancer, genetic disorder, or a million other things.
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    Or more likely psychogenic, given the recent death of his father.
curiousjorge 11y ago
so is root canal dangerous??
- __z 11y ago
  All medical interventions have the risk of adverse outcomes. Treating a patient is a risk-benefits analysis.
jivardo_nucci 11y ago
Is it necessarily the anaesthesia or a hemorrhage? Have they considered removing the root canal? Sometimes removing the materials from a root canal has improved a patient's health significantly. Certainly one could understand why the dental industry would avoid the meme "root canal = bad!", but in this case the patient has little to lose, his future being lost already.
- duskwuff 11y ago
  Claims that dental fillings are toxic, and that removing them will provide various health benefits, are a somewhat common medical scam. There is absolutely no evidence supporting these claims. http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/mercury.html http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/mercury.ht...
  - jivardo_nucci 11y ago
    We're talking about _root_ _canals_, not dental fillings! Other than the anaesthetic, the materials used in root canals are are entirely different from those used in a dental filling. Furthermore, root canals require different training and are (usually) done by endodontists. Dentists usually handle the more mundane and more tested procedure of dental fillings. My point is, root canals are much more invasive and have their own problems(not associated with dental fillings).
lobster_johnson 11y ago
Oliver Sacks, in his wonderful essay collection "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" [1], describes a similar case of a soldier, "Jimmy G.", who lost his ability to form memories after being wounded in 1945. Every half an hour or so his memory resets, and so 20 or 30 years later he still thinks that he's an 18 year-old man who just got wounded in the war. There's a particularly poignant moment in the story where his brother comes to visit the man in hospital in the 1970s, and how Jimmy is puzzled why his brother looks so old. Another well-known case of retrograde amnesia is Clive Wearing, a British pianist who was the subject of a BBC documentary, "Man Without a Memory" [2]. I recommend watching the clip. He describes his "resets" rather terrifyingly as slowly emerging from a sleepless coma. Whenever he sees his wife after such a reset, he leaps up to greet her as if they have been apart for a long time, and his evident happiness and inability to recognize his situation is heartbreaking. (His wife, unbeknownst to him, of course, has since divorced him, which only adds to the poignancy of the scene.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_f... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwigmktix2Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwigmktix2Y
neuro_imager 11y ago
I would strongly question the idea that he has "no structural abnormality". It would be very interesting to see exactly what type of imaging they performed on him. Bear in mind, an abnormality in the hippocampus or other memory related structures could be sub-mm in size and result in a significant impairment. If, for example, he did not have an MRI with diffusion weighted imaging with a sufficiently high B value (gradient value) they may be missing/have missed a very small stroke (this test is also time sensitive -only positive within the first few days of insult). If they did not perform susceptibility weighted imaging, they may have missed a tiny micro-haemorrhage. Both of these scenarios can result in memory loss if critical structures are involved. There are also several technical issues that may have resulted in a sub-optimal scan, precluding finding a tiny abnormality. There's also the question of whether the person reading the scan got it right or whether the strength of the magnet/technical parameters of the study were sufficient to resolve a tiny abnormality. Either of these scenarios could have been a consequence of reduced blood flow (hypoperfusion), a small clot (embolus) or a tiny blood vessel injury (dissection) that could have occurred during the procedure - possibly related to the anaesthetic but not definitively so. I suspect there is a definitive abnormality that the clinicians that saw him were unable to pick up. This seams a lot more likely than the idea that we need to revise our entire conceptualisation of memory formation to suit a psychological theory.
- jczhang 11y ago
  Not to deny what you're saying, because I believe a key tenet of biology is that structure follows function, but how would the structural abnormality be caused by the operation?
dbrgn 11y ago
There's a great movie by Christopher Nolan about exactly this condition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_%28film%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_%28film%29 http://letterboxd.com/film/memento/ http://letterboxd.com/film/memento/ Highly recommended.
- dogmati 11y ago
  There is also a mediocre but surprisingly endearing Adam Sandler movie about this condition.
sharon23758 11y ago
I would suggest everyone to get a second opinion just to be safe. I have used a second opinion service https://secondopinions.com https://secondopinions.com a few times and will continue to do so. For the time and price its well worth it. Very professional and saved me a bunch of money.They also gave me a coupon code to share “sy15" to take 15% off your entire order which should still work. I recommend getting a second opinion because it can potentially save your life
sharon23758 11y ago
I would suggest everyone to get a second opinion just to be safe. I have used a second opinion service https://secondopinions.com https://secondopinions.com a few times and will continue to do so. For the time and price its well worth it. Very professional and saved me a bunch of money.They also gave me a coupon code to share “sy15" to take 15% off your entire order which should still work. I recommend getting a second opinion because it can potentially save your life

202 points by tchalla 11y ago

Foy 11y ago

>he wakes up every morning believing he is still in Germany in 2005, waiting to visit the dentist. Without a record of new experiences, the passing of time means nothing to him. Today, he only knows that there is a problem because he and his wife have written detailed notes on his smartphone, in a file labelled “First thing – read this”. Literally 50 First Dates...

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
Much like the movie, yes, though in her case it was a daily, not an hourly, thing. It's nice that the film seems to be based on a real-life condition and portrays it fairly accurately.
- jedberg 11y ago
  I mentioned this to a psychologist and she laughed at me very hard. She was a professor and said that she uses the movie 50 First Dates in her class -- by having them write down everything that is wrong. She says it's so horribly inaccurate that it makes for a good long discussion.
  - Foy 11y ago
    Out of curiosity what are some of the things wrong with it?
    - DanBC 11y ago
      This page doesn't like the film, and lists some mistakes, but also lists some of the accurate bits. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychologist-the-movies/201212/amnesia-in-50-first-dates https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychologist-the-movies...
      - Foy 11y ago
        The only real "issue" that article seems to take with the movies was that (A) it used a term that doesn't exist to describe a condition that does have an actual name and (B) it was a cheesy romcom. But I mean, do you really expect any Adam Sandler movie to get to the real grit of living with a terrible disease?
    - jedberg 11y ago
      We didn't get into it deeply, but apparently the biggest issue is that it wouldn't be a daily thing. The recycle period is usually measured in minutes.
RexRollman 11y ago
His daily reaction to the appearence of his aging wife, and his own aging appearence, must be interesting.
- rev_bird 11y ago
  That's the part about this I'm so hung up on -- that this poor guy not only has this crippling condition, but that he has to come to terms with it every hour and a half, forever.
harryjo 11y ago
Memento

iopq 11y ago

This is the condition that was described in Memento. Really fascinating stuff. It makes me want to keep notes on everything, because most people rely on their memory for a lot of things. When we forget something we are frustrated "Oh darn, I forgot it again!". Imagine not being able to remember anything at all...

userbinator 11y ago
Imagine not being able to remember anything at all... ...including the fact that you can't remember anything? That would certainly be scary.
- rusabd 11y ago
  I once lost a memory for couple hours - I was fully aware that I don't remember anything

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

exizt88 11y ago

A comparably horrifying experience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing

yoha 11y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9810025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9810025

noblethrasher 11y ago

In a talk that I attended, Steve Wozniak mentioned that he studied a lot of psychology when he returned to the university after leaving Apple. He thinks that he may have been the first person to have come up with idea that we lose our memories with our teeth, and that researchers later discovered a link between the loss of our early autobiographical memories and the loss of our baby teeth.

rayalez 11y ago
He says in his autobiography that he was in a plane crash. That was the reason for leaving apple. He suffered from memory loss, so probably that is the reason for his interest in psychology. From wiki: "Wozniak sustained severe face and head injuries, including losing a tooth, and also suffered for five weeks after the crash from anterograde amnesia, the inability to create new memories. He had no memory of the crash, and did not remember his name in the hospital or the things he did after he was released from the hospital."
- MichaelCrawford 11y ago
  Was that in Scotts Valley? Ive flown over that strip (as a passenger). the neighbors forced it to close, the strip is still there but there are big red Xs painted all over it. I expect its intended for use in emergencies. I understand he didnt set the trim, which adjusts the balance of the plane for the distribution of passenger weight.
  - Stratoscope 11y ago
    Yes, Woz's crash was at the Santa Cruz Skypark airport in Scotts Valley. He was flying his V-tail Bonanza, a notoriously tricky airplane to fly: http://www.cultofmac.com/275742/wonderful-rides-steve-wozniak/ http://www.cultofmac.com/275742/wonderful-rides-steve-woznia... I used to love flying into Scotts Valley back in the '70s and '80s. It had a great picnic spot next to the field, and a scary approach when the landing direction was toward the southeast: The base leg (last turn before final approach) took you right toward a big tree-covered hill and you had to scoot around it a bit to avoid the trees. Most of the runway is long gone, with houses at the north end and a park in the middle. There is a bit of the old strip left at the south end - but it would have to be a real emergency to even consider trying to land on it. You can see the old airport in Google Earth if you use View/Historical Imagery and go all the way back to 10/1991. The south end of the runway is near Mt Hermon Road and Kings Village Road in Scotts Valley.

HappyTypist 11y ago

Most people took a little bit of time to get familiar with smartphone UIs, especially for someone who's jumping from no smart phone at all to the latest version of iOS and Android. I wonder if he has been slowly learning how to use a smartphone like the other condition, or if he has to rediscover the UI every time.

bashinator 11y ago
I believe the memory used to retain skills is separate from other types of memory. There was a famous patient, Henry Molaison[0] who was the first person to suffer this condition and participated in some really amazing research. He was able to learn new skills, albeit slowly. "His ability to form long-term procedural memories was intact; thus he could, for example, learn new motor skills, despite not being able to remember learning them." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison
- timcederman 11y ago
  If you read the article, it says the patient mentioned can't form procedural memories.

csomar 11y ago

The doctors initially suspected that he’d reacted badly to the anaesthetic, causing a brain haemorrhage – yet they failed to find evidence of injury. So he was discharged with the mystery still hanging over him, and the family moved back to England, where he was referred to the office of Gerald Burgess, a clinical psychologist in Leicester. Scouring the medical literature, he found five similar cases of mysterious memory loss without brain damage. Although none occurred during a trip to the dentist, they do seem to follow other periods of physiological stress during a medical emergency. That doesn't prove that the anaesthetic isn't the root cause. The article title sounds link-baity.

cristianpascu 11y ago
Not only link-baity, but also blaming the doctor. Large percentage of the large percentage of people who won't read the article will move away with a inconsciouss (at least) fear of medical interventions.
- bitJericho 11y ago
  Well yeah all medical interventions have can have side effects; they should be considered.
  - Tyr42 11y ago
    But they should be considered proportionally to their probability times severity, and in this case, the probability is small enough to be a rounding error, so you really should worry about other things first, like getting killed when driving to the dentist's.
    - logicchains 11y ago
      According to [1], medical errors are actually the third leading cause of death in the United States, so it's hardly a small probability. 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/leahbinder/2013/09/23/stunning-news-on-preventable-deaths-in-hospitals/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/leahbinder/2013/09/23/stunning-n...

ioquatix 11y ago

There is a Japanese movie about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Housekeeper_and_the_Professor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Housekeeper_and_the_Profes... I highly recommend it, especially if you are a mathematician.

bite_victim 11y ago

Any chance he suffered a profound trauma being under surgery? I imagine an utter fear of surgery and this could have been triggered by something really insignificant like a small tingling or just the thought of surgery, of a foreign element cutting deep in your tooth canal. That, amplified over and over (he might even have lost conscience if his jaw was being held in place by a device -- the doctor wouldn't have known it this way) could have given birth of some kind of mechanism of memory wipe, sort of like the one victims of rape or horrible accidents develop as a self defence mechanism to (not?) cope with what just happened. Only in this case it went terribly wrong.

rayalez 11y ago

Damaging my mind is my biggest fear. I had a simple surgery a year ago(shoulder arthroscopy), and I specifically said that I don't agree to general anesthesia or any kind of sedatives, because even a small probability of a small brain damage isn't worth it for me. Doctors tried to push me into accepting the general anesthesia, saying that it's the only option(and that we lose brain cells every day really, so who cares). I went to a different clinic where a doctor agreed to do the surgery under local anesthetics and without sedation without any problems. Said someting along the lines "don't worry, man, your brain is gonna be fine." He failed to mention that local anesthesia can also lead to neurotoxicity, and I was too ignorant to know about it(for some reason I assumed that local anesthetics are harmless, and didn't do my research). During the surgery I felt the symptomps(dizziness, difficulty speaking), consistent with neurotoxicity caused by local anesthetics. I don't notice any permanent damage, though I doubt that I'd be able to tell. 6 months after the surgery I have developed tinnitus, but I can't tell if it's connected to it or not. Anyway, my point is that no way in hell would I agree to the surgery if I'd have known the risks. Also, before that, doctors pushed me into unnecessarily taking general anesthesia for a routine procedure. They convinced me that it can't be harmful, and I was too young and socially awkward to ask more questions or argue. I also fear dental anesthetics. There is research indicating that they can cause neurotoxocity. I can easily sit through filling regular cavities(with a dental laser it really isn't that painful), but I'm not sure what I would do if I have to get root canal. I would take any option over anesthesia, but I don't know of any alternative. Some doctors say that it's just an irrational fear. But given that there's some research saying that even dental anesthesia can cause neurotixicity, I'm not sure what's so irrational about not wanting my brain cells to die. My brain is what matters to me the most in the world, far more than anything else, it has infinite value, because that's literally "me", so even small chance of small damage is worth avoiding at all cost(in my value system). It's infuriating how casual doctors are about such risks, especially in cases when they can be avoided. I understand taking necessary risks when it's a life-saving surgery, but when you have alternatives, I think patient should be able to make an informed choice.

DanBC 11y ago
The "irrationality"[1] is the weight you put on the unknown risk of brain-harm from anaesthesia, while not appearing to assign much risk to how you get there. How likely is it that you're going to suffer brain injury in your day to day life versus from anaesthetic? [1] irrational is probably a not useful word here. You have real fear of real things.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

atarian 11y ago

>local anesthetic Local anesthetic is pretty much just a pain killer... it's not supposed to knock you out like GA (general anesthetic). I wonder if the article got the term right.

vvpan 11y ago

A few comments in this thread mention "genera anaesthesia side effects" and long-term problems. I have never heard of this and a quick wikipedia/google search is not bringing up good source on the topic. Is this substantiated or another "vaccines cause autism" kind of thing?

VieElm 11y ago
There was recent news on the detrimental effects of general anesthesia has on the very young and old. Apparently it can be neurotoxic but healthy adults don't seem to have long lasting problems.
- __z 11y ago
  A family friend of mine went under general anesthesia and woke up senile. He was in his late-70s, early-80s at the time. Lives in a nursing home now. Once in a while can have some moments of somewhat clarity but they only last for a minute or two.
jsprogrammer 11y ago
It seems possible, due to what is used for general anesthesia. However, the person in the story was not given general anesthesia, only a local anesthetic.
imaginenore 11y ago
General anaesthesia is actually somewhat dangerous. Your chance of dying from anaesthesia is around 1 in 100,000 - 185,000. While it may seem like a safe number, it's orders of magnitude higher than winning a major lottery. That number also doesn't include medical fuckups during anaesthesia, like overdose, airway obstruction. In that case the number shoots up to 1:2500 - 1:5000. http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/1/95.long http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/1/95.long 1.5 people in 1000 wake up, so the pain shock alone can kill you. Dental anaesthesia is known to kill, around 2 children per year. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/dental-sedation-child-deaths_n_1671604.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/dental-sedation-chi...

djfm 11y ago

If no link can be found between the dental surgery and the memory-forming loss, could it be that there is actually no link? Have any other hypotheses been researched besides the surgery?

imaginenore 11y ago
Exactly. It can be just a coincidence. A blood clot, undetected cancer, genetic disorder, or a million other things.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  Or more likely psychogenic, given the recent death of his father.

curiousjorge 11y ago

so is root canal dangerous??

__z 11y ago
All medical interventions have the risk of adverse outcomes. Treating a patient is a risk-benefits analysis.

jivardo_nucci 11y ago

Is it necessarily the anaesthesia or a hemorrhage? Have they considered removing the root canal? Sometimes removing the materials from a root canal has improved a patient's health significantly. Certainly one could understand why the dental industry would avoid the meme "root canal = bad!", but in this case the patient has little to lose, his future being lost already.

duskwuff 11y ago
Claims that dental fillings are toxic, and that removing them will provide various health benefits, are a somewhat common medical scam. There is absolutely no evidence supporting these claims. http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/mercury.html http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/mercury.ht...
- jivardo_nucci 11y ago
  We're talking about _root_ _canals_, not dental fillings! Other than the anaesthetic, the materials used in root canals are are entirely different from those used in a dental filling. Furthermore, root canals require different training and are (usually) done by endodontists. Dentists usually handle the more mundane and more tested procedure of dental fillings. My point is, root canals are much more invasive and have their own problems(not associated with dental fillings).

lobster_johnson 11y ago

Oliver Sacks, in his wonderful essay collection "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" [1], describes a similar case of a soldier, "Jimmy G.", who lost his ability to form memories after being wounded in 1945. Every half an hour or so his memory resets, and so 20 or 30 years later he still thinks that he's an 18 year-old man who just got wounded in the war. There's a particularly poignant moment in the story where his brother comes to visit the man in hospital in the 1970s, and how Jimmy is puzzled why his brother looks so old. Another well-known case of retrograde amnesia is Clive Wearing, a British pianist who was the subject of a BBC documentary, "Man Without a Memory" [2]. I recommend watching the clip. He describes his "resets" rather terrifyingly as slowly emerging from a sleepless coma. Whenever he sees his wife after such a reset, he leaps up to greet her as if they have been apart for a long time, and his evident happiness and inability to recognize his situation is heartbreaking. (His wife, unbeknownst to him, of course, has since divorced him, which only adds to the poignancy of the scene.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_f... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwigmktix2Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwigmktix2Y

neuro_imager 11y ago

I would strongly question the idea that he has "no structural abnormality". It would be very interesting to see exactly what type of imaging they performed on him. Bear in mind, an abnormality in the hippocampus or other memory related structures could be sub-mm in size and result in a significant impairment. If, for example, he did not have an MRI with diffusion weighted imaging with a sufficiently high B value (gradient value) they may be missing/have missed a very small stroke (this test is also time sensitive -only positive within the first few days of insult). If they did not perform susceptibility weighted imaging, they may have missed a tiny micro-haemorrhage. Both of these scenarios can result in memory loss if critical structures are involved. There are also several technical issues that may have resulted in a sub-optimal scan, precluding finding a tiny abnormality. There's also the question of whether the person reading the scan got it right or whether the strength of the magnet/technical parameters of the study were sufficient to resolve a tiny abnormality. Either of these scenarios could have been a consequence of reduced blood flow (hypoperfusion), a small clot (embolus) or a tiny blood vessel injury (dissection) that could have occurred during the procedure - possibly related to the anaesthetic but not definitively so. I suspect there is a definitive abnormality that the clinicians that saw him were unable to pick up. This seams a lot more likely than the idea that we need to revise our entire conceptualisation of memory formation to suit a psychological theory.

jczhang 11y ago
Not to deny what you're saying, because I believe a key tenet of biology is that structure follows function, but how would the structural abnormality be caused by the operation?

dbrgn 11y ago

There's a great movie by Christopher Nolan about exactly this condition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_%28film%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_%28film%29 http://letterboxd.com/film/memento/ http://letterboxd.com/film/memento/ Highly recommended.

dogmati 11y ago
There is also a mediocre but surprisingly endearing Adam Sandler movie about this condition.

sharon23758 11y ago

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sharon23758 11y ago