So I was over at my neighbors house today, and he was telling me about this surgery he is getting on Friday. He's getting a camera shoved down his throat to see whats going on in his gut. He said he wanted to go under, because he didn't wan't to have to be awake through the thing, and he said the nurse said don't worry, they have a shot that will take care of that. He asked, "well is it going to knock me out?" They said, "well, no, it'll make you forget what happened." He started the conversation out asking me if I have ever seen Men In Black, where they zap you with that light. So now they have a shot that does this? This is going to happen through a VA clinic. They didn't tell him what was in the shot, so I said I would research it.

My concern is what if they go back too far? Since this is through VA, is he a guinea pig? Has anyone heard of such a thing?

[edit on 9-8-2007 by Quasar]

It's standard procedure to give anyone having surgery a shot of Versed. It blocks your short term memory, because even under surgery if someone tells you things you will remember it. It doesn't matter if it's VA or not. I recently had knee surgery and they gave me that before I even got the anesthesia.

They did an experiment where they talked to people that were unconscious having surgery, and later after they woke up they remembered everything they told them.

[edit on 8/9/2007 by Zaphod58]

wow no i personaly haven't heard anything like the way that you described it. but anesthesia(sp?) think is just a temporary not pay attention right now type of thing. but i really dont have a clue. now a days i would definately want a list of the exact contents in the shot or whatever.

[edit on 8/9/2007 by agent violet]

I had the shot when the wisdom teeth were removed. I only remember bits and peices of that day....kind of scary if you think about it. Glad I had a ride home, who knows where I'd of ended up.

Versed is a magical animal.

While you're on it, you can speak and will respond to commands (ANY commands, pretty much). You have access to long term memory, but you don't remember a lot past about 15 minutes while on it.

So, you can give someone a nice arm full of Versed, and maybe another drug or two in the mix to make them happy on top of it, I've heard about people getting the Versed-scop-amphetamine cocktail and they are happy as clams, wide awake and eager to please. The neat thing about the short window is, they can't remember the crap they just told someone, so you can ask some questions, wait a few minutes, and ask again, and see if you get more than one answer. If you get the same one every time, it's probably true, or at least they think it is. If you get a new answer every time, it's bs and they're making it up. They just don't remember what they said 10 minutes ago.

A cool thing about Versed is that the recipient will "splice out" the missing time, that is, it's very difficult to spot exactly WHEN you got it. Your memory will attempt to edit your perception of what happened so that the time has no gaps, something that other amnesics don't do as well. So if you give someone a dose of it while they're in bed or relaxed, they won't remember you did it at all, necessarily. Let's say you were in your easy chair getting sleepy in the evening, about to go to bed. I let myself in your house, we toss you on the floor and give you a big shot of Versed mix. You will lose the last 20 minutes or so from your memory. I might rifle your house, then stick you back in the chair and leave. When you awaken, your memory will try to splice out the time gap, and you'll have this vague recollection of getting sleepy, then waking up. Obviously, you dozed off.

You can do other stuff with Versed, a lot of times they do medical procedures under Versed where you want to have the patient awake but not remember what happened later, like colonoscopies.

It's also good for doing surgery (VERsatile SEDative), you can give someone a drip of it and start whacking, although it's better if you've got some other anesthetic to balance it with such as nitrous. In the field, you can use versed and an opioid for surgery if you watch it.

Last but not least, you can reverse accidental overdoses of it with some Romazicon if you have to.

edit: tmi

[edit on 9-8-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

Man, that is completely insane. Is this approved by the FDA? What happens if you come out of surgery, and don't recognize your wife?

Tom Bedlam is right, some crazy criminal can do the unthinkable, give a shot to the witness, and come out clean? If this gets in the wrong hands, it can get messy.

It only affects SHORT term memory. It doesn't have anything to do with long term memory which is where memories of your wife, children, life would be. Personally I love the stuff. I'd rather go under and not remember a thing than have bad dreams of half remembered things that happened while I was under the knife.

Interesting, to say the least. I am a firm believer of natural medicines, I mean hey, they have been tested over generations. And they are never "approved" by the FDA. If the FDA can't make any money off of it, then I don't think it can be approved. If we can grow our own medicine, it will mean bankruptcy to the FDA. My grandmother pays out hundreds of dollars a month on medications that cure the side effects of other medications. Thats a conspiracy.

Originally posted by Mirthful Me
Could you please demonstrate the mechanism that the FDA would use to "make money off" something?

While your at it, perhaps you could detail how the FDA could go "bankrupt."

Alright, I accept that challenge. But since it is Friday night... Give me a couple days.

How a drug which is used to induce a blackout episode can be treated as harmless is beyond me. I have to wonder how the medical community would feel about having airline staff dope them with versed on their next flight in the interest of safety - it makes as much sense there.