Post
by khauser » Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:36 am
At the risk of re-igniting this thread:
Eric, there are a few points that I am not sure you caught:
1) People are NOT recommending you to head to the ER because they think you'll hurt yourself. The feeling of imminent dread is a strong clinical indicator that the ER will take very seriously. For whatever reason, when things are not going well the body is typically more in tune with it than we give credit. Imminent dread, for instance, is a common symptom of a heart attack ... sometimes it is the ONLY symptom, until it's too late.
2) I bet you got this one on your own, but your choice of foods immediately following surgery don't make a ton of sense. Soup, my friend ... GOOD soup. That'd be much easier on your throat. Tonsillectomy patients often get ice cream because it is easy to swallow, relatively nutritious and the coolness is a plus.
3) With regards to pain killers (I have too much experience here) it certainly is true that they will tend to depress your breathing (so does alcohol and a long list of other stuff), HOWEVER, you're experience some incredible pain right now, and another truth is that if you wait too long to take a pain pill you'll end up taking more than otherwise. Let's say your prescription is 1-2 percocet every 4-6 hours as needed. (That's a pretty common one...) So let's say you took 1, and it still hurts a lot, so an hour later you take another. Let's say that takes the edge off (nothing makes it go away, at least nothing we want to do). Well, around 3 hours after the FIRST pill was taken you might start to feel it getting worse. IF you do, then you might be smarter to take one more right then. If you don't and wait until 4 hours after the second pill wears off, you'll probably end up taking 2 again. But by taking the one right away, you might find you're fine for another 4 -6 hours. Why is this? It's harder to mask extreme pain than it is to keep it masked. Your brain gets very "tuned in" when things hurt, so you need a significant amount of counteractive medication to break that cycle. Once you do, it generally takes a lot less to keep it there. Just don't exceed the prescribed amount ... that leads to a different horror story.
4) If you are allowed, you should be taking some NSAID religiously. Why? Because one thing Percocet can't do is reduce swelling. Neither oxycodone (the narcotic) or acetomeniphen will reduce swelling. Additionally, I find that 2-4 advil easily match the pain reducing power of percocet when inflammation is involved. I was taking JUST advil for my chronic back problems for years. Unfortunately, my kidneys didn't think a lot of that plan...
I hope this helps.
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