I went for an endoscopy this morning, I was given 3 squirts of throat spray and then the sedation, unfortunately i was still wide awake !!!
The nurse tried to carry on but every time she put the tube down my throat I gagged and i pulled it out the way !!!
I had the same procedure many years ago and don't remember a thing about it.
Two other women in the same bay were fast asleep.
Why didn't the sedation work for me????
Conscious sedation lets you recover quickly and return to your everyday activities soon after your procedure... however not pleasant ..... the gagging reflex belongs to the sympathetic nervous system so wont be stopped under mild sedation i am afraid :/ the idea is that you wont feel the tubes ..... just the idea of the tubes is enough to make you gag .. I recall this when i had it done and felt like you do how dare the do it when not sedated .. the other two ladies may have had minor surgery or had another ailment that needed full sedation ...... sorry not helpful to you :/
The sedation worked on my recent endoscopy but I was terrified before I had it as the sedation for a colonoscopy few weeks ago didn't work and I was in agony throughout the whole procedure. I think it must be that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't..
I don't know why it didn't work, but I was talking to a woman last week about this. When I had my endoscopy, I opted for no sedation as I wanted to drive there & back (my appointment was 20 miles away after my local hospital messed my appointment up) they didn't even give me throat spray. It was quite unpleasant and I remember being sick when they put the tube down. The woman I spoke to last week said she had it done recently and the spray was enough to stop the gag reflex. She had it done years ago in Birmingham with no spray and remembers gagging/throwing up.
Well worth having done as it turned out she has a hiatal hernia which is making her stomach go up into her chest and causing her breathing problems.
Interesting to note her comments about it. She said she is relieved that is is someting they could diagnose and operate on. She said she would have hated it if they had told her it was IBS or 'one of those things she will have to live with'
I had a similar experience a couple of years ago during an endoscopy. I became fully awake twice during the procedure and had to be forcibly pinned down by 2 nurses to stop me trying to pull out the endoscope. Each time I was given a further shot of sedative which, after the third attempt, got me through the procedure. In her notes to my GP, the gastroenterologist commented that she couldn't understand why this had happened as the sedative dose had been high. I wouldn't have been so upset about it if I hadn't warned her beforehand that my dentist had commented previously that I do not sedate easily. Not a procedure I would repeat at any cost.
maybe, if you've been sedated enough times, your body grew a resistance.
And for the tubes and the gagging, its just the thought of the tube going down your throat.
Colonoscopy and endoscopy
Is it worth asking for pain relief/sedation for sigmoidoscopy?
Endoscopy experiences
Scope with or without sedation ? 
