I can't tolerate my meds.....

[Kimberly]

Hi all. I need some advice......

I'm one of "those" that does not tolerate medication well at all. I seem to be so physiologically sensitive to side effects that the benefits of taking the drugs is sometimes not worth it. After my microdiscectomy I was prescribed Norco (10/325) and it made me so sick to my stomach I couldn't eat and was terrified of vomiting (scary thought right after surgery.) I didn't take them on an empty stomach...forced myself to eat crackers whenever I took them to try and minimize the stomach problems. I also cannot stay awake while on these (which after surgery was welcomed, but a tricky side effect to tolerate for any length of time.) I took these for about 2-3 days and chose pain over the side effects. I was moved to Percocet (5/325) which lessened the symptoms somewhat, but I still have extreme difficulty tolerating the nausea, dizziness and sleepiness. Currently it's a huge tradeoff to taking these for pain relief. OTC drugs don't really help much at all.

I'm looking at a 2-level ALIF in June and am VERY frightened about being able to control my pain after surgery when I HATE the thought of taking opiates now. I will certainly remind my Dr. of this and hopefully we can come to some sort of solution, but I was hoping some of you might have some advice.

Thanks (and Happy Easter!)
Kimberly

[trkdoc714]

Kimberly,

Pain management post surgery should be addressed in conjunction with your surgeon. Make sure he knows of your sensitivities to the prescriptions you've had before. Possibly he can work with your pain management Dr. to prescribe pain medications that will "agree with you" prior to surgery so the recovery period won't be overshadowed by excessive pain.

Happy Easter to you too!

Let us know if we can help,

Bob

[Frances144]

I am completely with you on this. In the real world, your surgeon should take an interest but certainly in my world, my surgeon is 400 miles away and I see him once every 3 months post-op. He never discusses pain relief.

It is such a juggle, isn't it? Painkillers stop you minding the pain but they come with a price and if that price is too high you have to decide which one you can cope with best - ie the pain or the side effect.

You take more pills to counter-act the side-effects but then you end up looking down at a handful of pills that are growing in amount on a daily basis. It is very depressing.

And then pills you have always taken, or have taken without problems before now become intolerable giving you other scary symptoms.

I do feel for you, as I said. My doctor went through the list of painkillers and for me, I am running out of possibilities.

Renal failure, heart failure versus back pain suddenly became a battle I didn't know which side to take.

Hugs xx

Sorry, I am of no use at all really.

[Kimberly]

Kimberly,

Pain management post surgery should be addressed in conjunction with your surgeon. Make sure he knows of your sensitivities to the prescriptions you've had before. Possibly he can work with your pain management Dr. to prescribe pain medications that will "agree with you" prior to surgery so the recovery period won't be overshadowed by excessive pain.

Happy Easter to you too!

Let us know if we can help,

Bob

Thanks Bob. I will definitely make sure my surgeon understands my concerns (and hopefully can offer me something different or something in addition.) I hope so anyway.

Kimberly

[Kimberly]

I am completely with you on this. In the real world, your surgeon should take an interest but certainly in my world, my surgeon is 400 miles away and I see him once every 3 months post-op. He never discusses pain relief.

It is such a juggle, isn't it? Painkillers stop you minding the pain but they come with a price and if that price is too high you have to decide which one you can cope with best - ie the pain or the side effect.

You take more pills to counter-act the side-effects but then you end up looking down at a handful of pills that are growing in amount on a daily basis. It is very depressing.

And then pills you have always taken, or have taken without problems before now become intolerable giving you other scary symptoms.

I do feel for you, as I said. My doctor went through the list of painkillers and for me, I am running out of possibilities.

Renal failure, heart failure versus back pain suddenly became a battle I didn't know which side to take.

Hugs xx

Sorry, I am of no use at all really.

Actually, it is helpful just knowing I'm not alone (or crazy) in my concerns. So your comment helped quite a bit. Thanks. Hugs to you too.

[Frances144]

Well you know where I am if you want to chat (ok a billion miles away but the internet makes the world smaller)! We can exchange drug misery stories!

[Katie]

Hi Kimberly, I'm one of those lucky ones too. I ended up with anaphylactic shock with Fentanyl, and close to it with others. I went through a number before settling on regular Morphine (Statex). Thankfully I had eventually found a pain medication specialist who worked with me on this.

So hopefully there is one out there that will work for you.

On the subject of post-op pain, I was advised to have an epidural both during and for the day following surgery, and it helped immensely. The German surgeons I was considering told me that even though you are asleep with general anesthetic, your body still feels pain, and generates it post-op. However if you are blocked and the nerves are not 'shocked', then the body recovers much more quickly and with much less pain. It worked for me, and thankfully my surgeon agreed to using it.

Hope this helps.

[Kimberly]

Hi Kimberly, I'm one of those lucky ones too. I ended up with anaphylactic shock with Fentanyl, and close to it with others. I went through a number before settling on regular Morphine (Statex). Thankfully I had eventually found a pain medication specialist who worked with me on this.

So hopefully there is one out there that will work for you.

On the subject of post-op pain, I was advised to have an epidural both during and for the day following surgery, and it helped immensely. The German surgeons I was considering told me that even though you are asleep with general anesthetic, your body still feels pain, and generates it post-op. However if you are blocked and the nerves are not 'shocked', then the body recovers much more quickly and with much less pain. It worked for me, and thankfully my surgeon agreed to using it.

Hope this helps.

I've read that others have had epidurals during and after fusion surgery and they all say they felt that it offered them a lot of relief. Did you just ask your surgeon for this or is it fairly "standard?"
How long after the surgery do they leave the epidural in? And was it awful when they did finally remove it?

Kimberly

[Katie]

Kimberly, I asked Dr. Pimenta if he could do it (epidural) for me, and he readily agreed. Doctors from Germany said it was common practice there, that their patients recovered much faster when they started using it.

They took the epidural out the day after surgery, and I was nervous about the possible pain. Thankfully I didn't experience any great misery...distraction pain set in for a while in my legs, but it was more a nuisance than bad pain. I certainly wasn't pain free, but was feeling good enough to get up and do laundry in the hospital sink, and a few days in actually felt like breaking into a jog while walking the hospital hallways. I was supposed to be released in three days, but had to stay a full week because of constipation problems.

They took it out within twenty-four hours to avoid the risk of infection, and there was nothing to it, just a bit of a gentle pulling, over in a second.

The week after I was released, we toured around the country (Brazil) a bit, and while tired and a bit sore, I wasn't in agony at all. I wouldn't want to have surgery without the epidural.

I have a lot of problems with anesthetics and pain meds...they either do not work at all, or often go through my system very quickly. I understand what you are going through. I think there may be another thread on here on this subject from last year.