waking from an induced coma

[Disney-28]

Does anyone know where I could possibly find information regarding how people are woken from a head injury. So for example how they try and wake the patient and they give a time limit of say 2 hours then decide they aren’t ready so put them back into the coma and they keep doing this until they are ready to wake properly.

[Redpanda4]

Hey, from my recent experience having had my partner recently woken from a coma after a couple of weeks, I would advise you to ask the nursing staff or the Drs/Consultant that cares for your loved one. They should explain how they want to go about the reduction of sedation to try and bring your loved one around again, and the course of action that they plan to take.

In our experience, they tried reducing my partner's sedation by half initially which was far too big of a jump and he struggled as a result, but they then weaned him down slowly until he was off sedation completely, so the new plan was reducing 1ml every 12 hours and they explained this to us at every point.

I hope that helps! Dont be afraid to ask questions to the nurses etc. I do all of the time!

[Disney-28 in reply to Redpanda4]

thank you so much for your reply.

My son is a year on from what happened to him but I can’t seem to find any information regarding how they wean them off of the sedation. It’s a long story but I just didn’t know if there was any information regarding the fact that they will try and reduce them but if they don’t feel they are ready they will sedate them again and try again which could be the next day or a few days later.

[Redpanda4 in reply to Disney-28]

I dont know if this factsheet may help? I was sent it to read through headway.org.uk/media/7914/c...

[Disney-28 in reply to Redpanda4]

thank you so so much this has really helped me. There’s other things happening and I won’t go into too much detail but you don’t know how much having this means to me

[Redpanda4 in reply to Disney-28]

You are very welcome. Hope things improve for you soon

[S21NTE]

Not sure if this is helpful but I was given the analogy of it being like landing a plane. They would come into land but if it wasn’t right they would take off again, circle and wait until the next opportunity to have another go.

As said above, I think getting the guidance from the nurses is best as they can talk about the reduction in sedation and how they plan to do it.

It took them 4 goes with my husband. x

[Disney-28 in reply to S21NTE]

thank you so so much for your reply, you don’t know how much this means to me.

It’s really difficult for me at the moment my sons injury occurred over a year ago, but I’m being accused of lying about when he woke up. I’m sure people who haven’t been there think they wake up and are walking and talking and able to just be as they was before. They tried to wake my son on day 7 where he opened his eye looked at us squeezed our hands twice did a thumbs up to the doctor but they said he wasn’t ready so they put him back to sleep, then day 8 they did the same he didn’t respond to anything that day so was put back to sleep. I got to the hospital a little late on day 9 but it was a lovely surprise when I got there and they had removed his breathing tube and had woken him up but as many of you are aware they aren’t theirselves and are very confused. It’s such a hard and heartbreaking time.

I’m just so so grateful for your reply.

[Hopelove82]

hey, in my experience with my husband, they use a drug for narcolepsy called modafinil to slowly wake him up from his what they thought was a vegetative state if the doctors think it’s safe for him it’s worth a shot, it does have a chance to increase the seizure threshold if epilepsy is a problem for him, so it’s something worth talking to your TBI doctors about, hope this helps , also brainline.org is a good resource on information about TBI’s

[Disney-28 in reply to Hopelove82]

thank you for your reply. My son is awake the incident happened a year ago but I’ve been searching for information to support what my son has been through and I’ve found it difficult to find any of the info regarding waking them up. People think they wake up and are walking about the same day they don’t see and understand all that goes on and to be honest we as in my son was luckier then a lot of other people