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My husband is a recovering opiate addict. Any time he has a surgical procedure, the doctors/surgeons insist he had to have opiates.
My mom is allergic to opiates and also can't have anesthesia. When she has surgery they give her nerve blocks. They wear off a few hours after surgery and then all she can have is tylenol and ice.
blame the infernal pain scale
[wth is a pain score? trying to objectively measure something that is entirely subjective ]
and many of the nursing staff push docs to give drugs to keep patients quiet on the floor
THEN, what happens if you really need opiates...You will never get them again
Once in your record, it's there forever
I will take a codeine pill or percoset once in a while. I just don't need anywhere close to as many as they are willing to give me or want me to take. Now my friends and wife might as well say they are allergic because they can't handle opiates at all.
I can tell you from experience that the nurse is right. If you didn't take it and bad after surgery pain kicked in, they can't catch you up on pain medication. It could be an uphill battle.
Happened to my daughter after tonsil surgery when she didn't "need" meds that 1st night. I had her in the ER screaming in pain. I believe they had to give her IV morphine.
You're right, there is a place for pills, after surgery is one of them, especially right after surgery.
You're so right that it's not easy to get pain meds these days. There are many threads here about it.
That was my knee revision replacement -- while more invasive than the first one I knew I didn't need that second percoset and I was absolutely right. The nurse trying to force it down my throat disrupted my sleep far more than the discomfort from the surgery.
As someone said above,the reason the nurse insisted because she or he does not have time to come back in the room to give you pain meds when you are in pain.
Medication passes usually have windows.
Say for example,I have 10 patients.
The orders for you states: Give percocet 5/650 every 8 hours.
Your perc is scheduled at 3pm,11pm,7am
I try to give it at that time. You refuse,but then you start having pain at 6 pm.
Guess what? You have to wait until 11pm until we can give it again.
I guess I have been fortunate in that if I have wanted, say a tramadol, I push the button and tell the nurse, "I think I am going to need that tramadol." and the nurse brings it. But that has been a very rare occurrence for me despite quite a few surgeries in the last several years.
In any case I can take my chances. Walking helped my knee discomfort much more than percoset anyway. And walking doesn't make you horribly constipated.
She was trying to avert more post op pain later on. That's usually how it works. If you wait too long, that originally prescribed dose won't work and you'll need more and become really uncomfortable. No need to argue about it though. She should have explained that and if you still refused, respect it.
I was absolutely fine without the second percoset. But soaring blood pressure from a fight with the nurse made me uncomfortable.
If I was the one facing surgery and I knew I would refuse opiates for pain control I'd probably make sure my surgeon knows this beforehand instead of pitching a fit with a nurse after the fact. Either that or make sure it is noted on the hospital admission forms you fill out. There is usually some place to state preferences. Your preference is for non-opiate-based pain control. These days there certainly are justifications for it, not limited to medical. IME post-op pain management usually came up either during the consultation with the surgeon or the admissions staff. I wouldn't lie about some non-existent allergy. Obviously that could backfire.
I have had bad reactions to some morphine derivatives in the past. I am NOT allergic to them, I just get sick as the world's most unfortunate dog. I always tell the admissions nurse this. Some hospitals issued me an allergy wristband others didn't. The idea is to warn them to double check my chart. The "allergy" warning never became a permanent issue.
Goes along with the idea that the more pertinent information you give a provider about yourself the more likely you'll get the care you want from them! Stack the deck in your favor. The only problem with this is that post-op pain isn't totally predictable. I might end up regretting my choice!
What if you don't want to refuse all opiates but wish to minimize their use?
You wonder?
The US has less than 5% of the world's population but consumes roughly 30% of the world's opioids, including more than 99% of the world's hydrocodone and 80% of the world's oxycodone. And even that seems to be not enough.
There is nothing left for others ... They just learned to cope with the pain.
In most countries, the use of opioid prescriptions is limited to acute hospitalization and trauma, such as burns, surgery, childbirth and end-of-life care, including patients with cancer and terminal illnesses. But in the US, every adult in America can have "a bottle of pills and then some"...
DAMN those Americans for using modern medicine to relieve their pain! They should just suck it up, or rely on a witch doctor or voodoo.
That was my knee revision replacement -- while more invasive than the first one I knew I didn't need that second percoset and I was absolutely right. The nurse trying to force it down my throat disrupted my sleep far more than the discomfort from the surgery.
Thanks for coming back. I was sure you weren't going to.
Well, hopefully you were only made to take 2 and can take Tylenol or whatever works if you do have pain. I don't doubt you've been discharged. I was discharged pretty quick after spine surgery.
When I went through my cancer treatment, I was on both morphine and oxycodone (or was it the other one?). Anyway, I would not have been able to survive w/out that medication - I was in that much pain.
The oncologist suggested I might be able to use a cannabis product but at the time I worked for the gov't and even with a doctor's say so, I would not be able to use it, so I used what I could.
I was not on it for long and I was the one who suggested we stop the morphine and then gradually we stopped the oxy. When used appropriately, medications are a God-send.
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