Adverse Effects
Side effects include malignant hyperthermia, muscle pains, acute rhabdomyolysis with hyperkalemia, transient ocular hypertension, constipation and changes in cardiac rhythm, including bradycardia, cardiac arrest, and ventricular dysrhythmias. In patients with neuromuscular disease or burns, a single injection of suxamethonium can lead to massive release of potassium from skeletal muscles, potentially resulting in cardiac arrest. Conditions having susceptibility to suxamethonium-induced hyperkalaemia are burns, closed head injury, acidosis, Guillain–Barré syndrome, cerebral stroke, drowning, severe intra-abdominal sepsis, massive trauma, myopathy, and tetanus.
Suxamethonium does not produce unconsciousness or anesthesia, and its effects may cause considerable psychological distress while simultaneously making it impossible for a patient to communicate. Therefore, administration of the drug to a conscious patient is contraindicated.
In Tamil Nadu, India, it is reported that anaesthetists ask patients for their caste because some members of the Chettiar clan are rumored to be fatally allergic to suxamethonium.
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