general anesthesia causing schizophrenia?

[gasman901]

I have a 4 year year old girl scheduled for dental restoration under GA. Her mother is concerned about the anesthetic because 2 of her husband's relatives had GAs (as adults) and shortly afterwards developed or were diagnosed as having schizophrenia. I am not aware of this as a potential complication, and cannot find anything in the literature to support schizophrenia being triggered by a general anesthetic. My guess is that this is coincidence. Anyone have any thoughts?

[Krishnendu Chaudhuri]

Never heard anything like this. Probably a coincidence. The family may be predisposed to mental illness.

[yogenbhatt1]

I have been associated with a psychatrist in my private practice. Off late though ECT is not so much practiced, at least in my practice. He used to complain that his patients of Depression worsened after ECT, they even became suicidal. Propofol was newly launched in Indian market in those days. And I had switched on to Propofol.
Later while surfing around on net and also discussing with other colleagues, I found out that it increases Depression in a patient of Depression. It also helps in patients suffering from Schizophrenia. In fect we had made a dictum to use Propofol in Schizophrenia and Thiopenton in Depression.

[frontier]

HI,
  i am not aware of any such relationship between anaesthetic drugs & schizophrenia.i have tried my best to look for literatures regarding this.unable to find.even asked my seniors,they all said no.with regards.

[jafo1964]

Dont be too sure
We still dont know what anaes can do
Also there is a wide inter-individual variation in response

I had a GA for uretereroscopic removal of calculus

Got a GA

premed - Alprazolam 0.5 + Ranitidine 150  PO

Pethidine 50 + glyco 0.2 Im

Fent 50 mcg + Xylo 50 mg
Thio 250 mg + Suxa 100 mg
8.5 mmCOETT
N2O +  O2+ Halothane 0.5 %
IPPV with Vecuronium 5 + 0.5
Reversal Neo 2.5 + Glyco 0.5

Uneventful peri-op period

I am not exaggerating -  I had initially diplopia for 3 days and then difficulty in focussing near small objects for 15 days.
I panicked and had an entire ophthalmic evaluation. All normal

After 15 days things became better and now all is normal

Any explanation for this bizzaire experience. Eye symptoms have been reported in international literature including ION
but nothing like this

In anaesthesia I strongly beleive there is a lot we still dont know

Anaes as a medical science is still in its infantile stage of existence