How long were you on pain meds?

I had a TAH on Monday and everything went great. The only major problem I'm having is pain medications - they're making me sooo nauseous. I'm tolerating the pain much better than the queasieness so I'm thinking of trying to do without... bad idea? Any suggestions?
TIA!

I think it all depends on how you feel, how you tolerate pain. You could try just motrin or ibuprofen. I had an LSH and with/in 3 days was off the prescription pain meds except for a couple more nights. went to motrin during the day so not to be so dizzy and sleepy. Good luck. Hope your recovery goes well.
ConnieK

I, on the other hand, do not tolerate pain very well. I'm a big baby. Today is 10 days post op for me. I am down to just 2 vicodans a day. One before bed. I usually make it about 12 hours before I need another one.

I also get pretty nauseated with the medicine. I always eat something pretty substantial before I take one though. At the minimum a yogurt and milk. I think the dairy helps me.

I also take the IBprofen 800's 3 times a day. That seems to help alot. My Dr. told me there's no reason to try to be a hero and not take the pain meds.

Good Luck. I hope you feel better.

Sorry, I forgot to mention you could also ask your Dr. for something in between. Darvocet is sometimes tolerated a little easier on the stomach.

I would recommend asking the doctor for something for nausea rather than doing without the pain medicine, unless you really don't need the pain med. Because we heal faster when we're not in pain. The presciption anti-nausea med they gave me in the hospital was Phenergan. It's an antihistamine and works very well but also causes sleepiness.

In addition to prescriptions, there are also over-the-counter anti-nausea medicines that work well. Ginger capsules work for me and seem to have no side effects. I also like doxylamine succinate (Unisom sleep tabs). This is an antihistamine that will make you sleepy, which is why it's used as a sleeping pill, but it also reduces nausea. Another good over-the-counter antihistamine is Diphenhydramine HCl (used for allergies and insomnia and also reduces nausea). But I would definitely ask your doctor before taking anything.

Good luck!

I had my TAH/BSO on 9/22/05 and stopped my pain meds by 9/26/05. I was amazed at how little pain I had by the 26th (only 4 days later). I just took Aleve when needed and did just fine. I didn't like the sleepiness the pain meds gave me. You can start off by taking the pain pills farther and farther apart and see how the pain is. I went from one pill every 6 hours to one every 8 hours to just one at night before bed, and before I knew it, I stopped the pain meds and was fine. Of course, you should check with your doctor first to see if this is OK.

Thankyou ladies! I called my Dr.s office and the nurse said to try just using tylenol and maybe ibuprofen (but I'm scared to even use that.) Karen - that's good to know that you didn't need pain meds for long. I don't think I'll go back to the hard stuff - haven't had any since 7 this morning and I'm doing okay. Oh, my dh did get me some anti-nasuea med too (I didn't even get a chance to tell him about the things Ferrin mentioned - an ex-drug addict was outside of the drug store handing out anti-drug pamphlets and told my dh about the stuff - what timing!) There's nothing too scary sounding in it so I'm giving that a try as well. Thanks again!

Even though I was prescribed 2 vicodan every 4 hours (WOW) I only took 1/2 every 5 hours. I didn't really seem to hurt but I didn't want to hurt so it was more like a precaution and after 5 or 6 days I had phased that out too.

Had TAH/BSO on 9/13 and was off pain meds 9/16.

I simply felt so great that any discomfort was just that....discomfort and not pain. I did take the occasional ibuprofen if I accidentaly did too much in order to keep down on the swelling, but that was it.

Just got really lucky I guess!!! :-)

Good luck,
Rebecca

I took the pain meds for less than one week then started cutting doses and then pills in half and then only at night and early AM . What I finally realized was the the anti gas and stool softener that I needed longer than the pain meds was making me nauseous. Always check with the doc and never mix meds but I found out that a good beer with a meal was a much better muscle relaxant and sleep aid than any pain med ever. I found that sometimes the pain meds actually made it hard to sleep. The beer also won't make you constipated and a healthy burp now and then can feel really good! (ladies, your allowed to do this!)