Hello and thank you for your questions.
In laymen's terms: with GA in dental surgeries we mostly place the tube down your nose and into your trachea to keep the tube out of the way of the mouth. You have heavy sedatives that paralyze you and put you to sleep. The machines attached to the tube breaths for you, monitors your heart, your blood pressure, you level of consciousness and the amount of oxygen getting absorbed and delivered to your brain. If you were not getting the right amount of oxygen your
pulse oximetry would decrease, the anesthesiologist would see this and make the proper corrections. Generally we keep you at 98-100%
oxygen saturation. When you get down to 95% the machines start making noises to let us know to increase it if needed.
The risks of death increase with general
anesthesia and is normally not recommended for most cases. Generally you can get conscious sedation which allows you to respond to commands, you are awake, breath for yourself but the medications give you
amnesia and you don't remember the procedure. IV Conscious sedation is much safer than GA. The next level lower would be nitrous oxide and
halcion pills. The next level would just be Local
anesthetic.
The health professional has to have you sign a consent stating that you are aware that death and other harmful side effects are risks involved in general anesthetic procedures. You would be informed if adverse events occurred in the OR as well and they would be documented in your work up files.
Hope this answers your question.
Best wishes and good health.
Dr. Ward