Should I Take My Blood Pressure Medications the Day of Surgery?
Should I Take My Blood Pressure Medications the Day of Surgery?Answer: Certain medications, including several high blood pressure drugs and some steroids, should be taken the day of surgery. Generally, patients are advised not to eat or drink anything for several hours (8-12 is ideal) before surgery. This usually has little to do with the surgery itself. Rather, this guideline is in place because having solids or liquids in your stomach at the time of surgery greatly increases the risk of choking. In other words, many surgeries done under general anesthesia (totally asleep) require a breathing tube and ventilator to carry out the process of breathing while the patient is asleep. Breathing tubes are inserted through the mouth, down the throat, and directly into the trachea. Medicines used to induce sleep before putting the breathing tube in place generally block the gag reflex, but this reflex can still be triggered by the passage of the tube th
