Gum?

Surgery on Tuesday!! Have to be at the hospital at 6am for an 8am start. No water after midnight. Can I chew gum? I'll be up at 4am and out the door at 5am and, well, I'll be thirsty. Can I moisten my mouth some way? I'm the kind of person when I get thirsty I cough really bad like a choke hack, it sucks. I always have water with me.

Can I chew gum?

the info I have says NO  -  can only brush your teeth.  Just be glad you are early .....my surgery wasn't until 3ish in the afternoon !!

No, chewing gum is generally not allowed immediately before any surgery.

You can have small sips of water if absolutely necessary but you really should be ok. You'll be in bed before midnight, and in the morning you'll get up and go straight to the hospital. You won't even notice. When I had surgery, I was up at 5 AM and did not have surgery until 2 PM and didn't even notice not eating or drinking. I got to sit across from two nice people in the waiting room who decided to eat pizza and drink pop while they waited for a family member. Hopefully your experience will be much better!

My surgery was 2pm and I was so nervous/excited it didn't bother me at all! No one (even visitors were told to hide bottles of water/food in their bags/pockets out of respect for the preop patients.

Mine was scheduled at 3:00pm at the Ottawa Civic.. they however said water was acceptable up to 1.5 hours before check in (11:00am) and that it would help with the surgery...  Whether it did or not, I will never know as things happened so quickly that day that I never realized until reading your post that I didn't consume anything past bedtime the night before!

Best of luck on your surgery - I'm sure it's going to be awesome!

Bob

You'll find you don't need to, you will have so much adrenaline pumping that you won't even notice not eating or drinking. A short while before your surgery they will give you oxy to relax you and in a few minutes you will be so high that the rest will be a blurr. At least that's what they gave me.