Thanks for that pharmacokinetic graph and info on airway collapse blood concentrations, very useful.
In order to prevent any failure, I was thinking of also blocking the oxygen air supply while administering propofol. This could be achieved by wearing an anaesthetic face mask (these have an airtight seal to the face), with a 6-litre plastic food bag fixed to the mask, so that you rebreathe the air in the bag. Within a few minutes, the oxygen levels in the bag will become very low, but by this time you should be unconscious.
In fact, I was thinking that if an easier means to render you unconscious were available, it could be used in conjunction with this method of blocking the oxygen supply. One possible example is the anaesthetic gas sevoflurane, which can be bought on IndiaMart as 250 ml bottles of volatile liquid for about $70.
Typically 4% to 8% of sevoflurane gas is used for rapid induction (loss of consciousness). Induction typically takes 1 to 3 minutes. To maintain anaesthesia, 1% to 3% of sevoflurane gas is used, depending on the desired depth of anaesthesia. So you could place a few ml of sevoflurane liquid in a plastic food bag connected to a mask, calculated to produce 4% to 8% of gas concentration in that bag, and then place the mask on your face (1 ml of liquid sevoflurane creates 200 ml of sevoflurane gas). Most (95% to 98%) of sevoflurane breathed in is breathed out again, so sevoflurane levels in the bag may well be sufficiently maintained over time (though I need to do some calculations to see if this is the case).
The sevoflurane would anaesthetise you, and then you would not notice the reduction in oxygen in the bag which will cause asphyxiation after several minutes.
However, if upper airway obstruction via loss of muscular tone occurred with this method, it's not clear what would happen, because if breathing stops due to obstruction, then sevoflurane administration also stops. But people typically regain consciousness 5 to 10 minutes after sevoflurane administration stops, so the anaesthesia would continue for at least 5 minutes.
AI tells me sevoflurane is less likely than propofol to cause upper airway obstruction.
Apparently 20% to 30% concentrations of sevoflurane can cause cardiac arrest within minutes. But you also get severe hypotension, excessively slow heart rate, irregular heart rhythms, severe airway irritation with coughing, laryngospasm, bronchospasm, etc.
Last edited:
