Saturday, March 29, 2014

PART 11: PAIN TOLERANCE

I really did not know what to expect with regards to pain after the surgery.  I knew things would hurt for a while but I didn't know if that was going to be a few days or a few weeks.  And what about intensity?

After never having a major surgery like this, I was not quite ready for pain management to be the number one item on my mind for the entire first week after surgery.

There were two sources for the pain, one is the direct injury/surgery area and the other comes from the inflammation.  Percocet and acetaminophen were prescribed for the former and a combination of ibuprofen and ice for the latter.  

Since pain was constant the entire first week, and pretty intense the first few days, my schedule and activities all quickly revolved around managing it.  Since I was taking strong narcotics every 6 hours my meal schedule quickly followed suit to prevent nausea.  Since ice treatment was required to control the inflammation, I spent most of the first week stuck in a chair.

After 3-4 days of the strong narcotics I knew I wanted to reduce my dosage as quickly as possible.  I was tired of the constant side effects of nausea, light-headedness, and slight headaches.  So on day four after surgery I decided to cut one of my doses of Percocet back.  Near the end of that six hour cycle between doses, the pain worsened and I knew it was still too early too cut back on the Percocet just yet.

A few days later, on night seven after surgery, I woke at 4 am and felt awful.  The nausea and light-headed ness were more than I could bear.  As I got up I noticed I had been sweating and my balance was off more than usual.  At that point I knew it was time to cut back, the side effects were too much.  

So now it's 18 hours later, some constant pain is back, but it's manageable and I'm hoping I've turned the corner and can start focusing my attention elsewhere.

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