Question:
can anyone please explain to me what it feels like to wake up and be on a ventilator.

what exactly do you feel? does it feel like it is breahting for you or do you breath and it stops? do you breath thru your nose or mouth?    — LAURA G. (posted on June 26, 2001)

June 26, 2001
Right before surgery the anethesiologist told me he would probably wake me with the ventilator still down my throat and put me on my C-pap machine from there. This is what I remember: I vaguely remember looking at my husband and pointing at my throat and mouthing "I can't breathe." He says they had the ventilator on me for 4 or more hours after surgery. There was a glitch with my c-pap. But the point is I was so in and out, that's about my whole memory of that. And if my husband hadn't filled me in, I'm not sure I would have any memory other than that one. Evidently i relaxed, (probably passed out from pain meds) and let it do the work. When I really woke up, it was gone.
   — Sue H.

June 26, 2001
The tube will most likely be in your throat, you will not be able to talk (it literally goes between your vocal cords)and it feels odd because the air goes into the tube directly to your lungs so you dont feel the air in your nose or your mouth. (have you ever scuba dived ???) the best part is they will keep you as sedated as possible to keep you calm. GOOD LUCK !!!
   — Ronda L.

June 26, 2001
That was the most unpleasant feeling I've ever experienced. Not as in painful, but - I just felt like I was suffocating. It was supplying all the oxygen I needed in my lungs and they kept reassuring me of that, but I just had the most intense "need" to "take a DEEP breath" - and you cannot do that - it just keeps you going with really shallow little breaths - hour after hour....I did NOT like that feeling at all and if it wasn't for all the pain medication, I probably would have really panicked. I was SO glad when they took it out!!
   — Cathy J.

June 28, 2001
I was the vent for almost three weeks. Most of the time I was in a coma, but I do remember when I woke that I also had the suffocating feeling. The machine was breathing for me, but I was also struggling to breathe on my own, at my own pace and i fought the machine - this was difficult. I remember pointing to it and motioning for them to take it out. At one point I pulled it out on my own. They re-intubated me then tied my hands down. I do remember after the vent was removed I had A TON of mucus for WEEKS. They had to give me a hand held suction wand so I could drain the mucus from my mouth on my own. It was thick and white and I do remember that after a certain amoutn of time, It calcified. I had so much mucus that I never slept because I was afraid I would drown in it.
   — Trisha V.

January 24, 2004
HORRIBLE!! I am a ventilator nurse, and when I had my tonsils out, I said over and over that I did not want to wake up on the vent....and I did. Suffocating is what it felt like. And I gagged and gagged. It also felt weird that I could not take a deep breath. Please! DO NOT PANIC!! I did, and I was almost re-intubated from it. I went into bronchospasm (where your airway closes...for real). The nurses kept saying...be calm, be calm...but it was very hard. It sort of felt like releasing a bull into a china shop...thrashing around, gasping, and crying. I found out later that if the team had taken me seriously when I told them ahead of time that waking up on a vent would set me off into a panic, there could have been some medicine that might have helped.
   — Andrea L.

January 24, 2004
Laura, I really didn't feel that the breathing was unusualy, but my saliva would build up quickly. After the second day, the nurse gave me the vacuum(rather like the one the dentist uses) to suction myself. You can't cough on your own. The nurse has to help. I don't know why you are asking; I hope it isn't too serious. I wouldn't have been on the vent if I had been diagnosed earlier with sleep apnea.
   — Janis D.

August 31, 2004
I am an asthmatic so I have found myself on a ventolator many times in the past. It is not one of my favorite experiences but if you stay calm you will get through it. You will be able to breathe fine but there will be alot of mucus and saliva and you won't be able to swallow it so that will be weird. Just be as calm as possible and discuss your concerns with your surgeon ahead of time and you will do fine. Kathi
   — kpratt2