Pain Management - Epidural

thanks housemdfan

I'm a house fan myself

I had an epidural for my TVH. I totally loved it! There were some things that I did not realize would happen, however.

You do not get out of bed that day. It stayed in for 24 hours (which is a normal amount of time). Which meant that my legs felt like they were encased in rubber for that entire time. If I would have had a general with a PCA, then I would have been walking that day.

I was told that you would be alert when you woke from the surgery. Nope. It took me almost 3 hours in recovery before I was lucid enough to go to a room.

I had absolutely no pain at all. It was amazing! Until an hour after they shut it off. They do not remove it when they shut it off at my hospital in case they cannot control your pain without it. The only part of me that hurt was the spot where the plastic tube went into my back. It was excruciating! But, 2 percosets later, it went away. I got the epidural taken out 4 hours after it was turned off.

My biggest recommendation to anyone is to find out what their anesthesiologist is expert at. I happened to know an OR nurse who told me mine was extremely good at epidurals. It was his preferential treatment. I confirmed this with my doctor and the anesthesiologist. That is the main way I made my choice. If your anesth. is very good at general, go with general. If he is good at epidurals, go with epidurals.

Also, if you have asthma, an epidural seems to be the anesth. of choice for you. I am not sure why.

I am not a health care anything, nor do I want to be. Ask your doctor what is best for you and he/she will tell you.

could you lie on your back or did u have to be on your side till it was taken out??

I could lay on my back. I was also lucid right away in recovery. They also left my epidural in while they tried to figure out the pain management and said they could turn in back on. I really only had 2-3 of bad discomfort when they turned it off. I also stood the evening of my surgery with the epidural still in and running.

Teresa

I had the epidural with my surgery, I am 12 days post op. I loved the epidural...dont remember when it was placed on my back, it must of happened in the or, when I woke up in recovery I was well awake, bit sleepy, my legs were numb, but the feeling came back slowly, I was in NO pain at all...felt fine....I had no needle in my back, they must of taken it out in the or as well. stayed in bed the whole day, they say you should stay in bed if you had the epidural because if not you could have headaches of shoulder pain...I had none. the next day they took my catherer out and my IV and went for a walk around the hospital, got dressed and went home. I was given percocet, and that worked fine. I strongly recommend the epidural.
good luck with your choice, you ask the doctor and do what is best for you.
blessings,

Amen

	Quote:
Originally Posted by donna10908 I had a TAH on Jan. 21, 2008. I was given a spinal with verset during the procedure and duramorph(long lasting morphine) after. The spinal was used only during the procedure and the duramorph and an iv with a pain killer was used for the first 24 hours. I was never in any pain at all during that time period. The iv was removed on day 2 and I was given oral pain medication which also worked very well. I thought the spinal worked very well and I would recommend it to anyone.

I am so glad to read this. This is what my doc said he thought I should do.