Twilight IV anesthesia for plastic surgery

Twilight anesthesia, or intravenous (IV) anesthesia, can be used for both short (2-hour) surgeries as well as for longer, multiple-procedure cosmetic surgery cases. I prefer twilight anesthesia because it offers several advantages over general anesthesia, one of which is the quicker recovery time for the patient immediately following the surgery.

To help illustrate how well patients do during recovery, I’ve gotten permission to film two of my patients immediately following their surgeries. Each patient has just undergone cosmetic surgery with IV anesthesia in our Quad A-accredited surgery center here in Baltimore.

The first patient is filmed about 30 minutes after her routine breast augmentation, a relatively short procedure, done with nerve blocks and IV sedation. You can read more about what I use for a safer, less painful breast augmentation here.

The second patient is filmed about 40 minutes after her longer, multi-procedure surgery. This patient experienced a significant weight loss and her surgery included an inner thigh lift followed by a tummy tuck and a breast augmentation with mastopexy. The surgery lasted about nine hours. The dangers of multiple procedure surgeries are related to the general anesthesia commonly used. I have patients who undergo longer surgeries like this who do quite well using IV sedation and wanted to show this as well.

I want to thank both of these patients for letting me speak with them on camera during recovery to help others see the benefits of using IV sedation for cosmetic surgery. Read more about the advantages of IV sedation over general anesthesia and why I think it’s great for my patients.