Pain medication is a pain!

So it's the day of your surgery. You're hungry because you couldn't eat after midnight, and you're on the verge of taking the first person's Dunkin Donut's coffee you see. At least that was how I was that morning. Depending on what kind of procedure you're having, they may offer you something called a "nerve block." Trust me, you want to get this. While it may not work 100% at blocking your pain, you do not want to wake up after surgery and feel the meds wear off!


When you are finally discharged from the hospital, they send you home with enough prescription pain medication to keep you "comfortably" pain free. The surgery I had was pretty extensive.  The medical terms for what I had done are: Peroneal Tendon Synovectomy, Calcaneal Osteotomy, Gastroneumius Recession, and a Talar Navicular Coalition.  [Yeah, I didn't know what they were either] If you have a weak stomach, I do not recommend going onto youtube and putting in any of those words.


Basically they went in cleaned up one of my tendons that had arthritis on it, removed the extra bone that had formed when my bones grew together, released my Achilles tendon through an incision in my mid calf, and chopped my heal in half, moved it over and put a few screws in it to hold it in place.  At least this is my understanding of it.


Anyways, now that that ramblings all said and done.  Once I was discharged from the hospital, my mom took me back to cape cod where I would be recovering. Since I was out of, thanks to the morphine, she was in charge of giving me my pain medication when I needed them.  I under no circumstances blame her for what happened.

Finally home from surgery! All wrapped and propped up! 

I was given oxycontin, oxycodon, motrin, and one other thing I can't remember.  Within two days of the surgery and being on the pain medication and taking it as prescribed, I ended up at cape cod hospital.  I could not stop itching.  It felt as if I had been covered with something that caused it to burn and itch.  It was mostly my face and arms, but it was unbearable.  Turns out, I'm allergic to Oxycontin and Oxicodone.   Two days after major surgery, I was off prescription pain medicine.


Since I could no longer take the prescription pain medicine, I was taking the motrin in it's place.  If your mom told you to never take motrin or pain meds on an empty stomach, here is the reason.  Pain medication, such as motrin, Advil, aspirin etc, is an NSAID pain medication.  The frequent use of taking these pain meds is that it can wear away the stomach lining. If you take it with food, the food can absorb some of the stomach acid and prevent this from happening.


I have always taken Advil for everyday ache's and pains from headaches to my shoulder/elbow pain [result of being hit by a car in april 2010].  Buy this point, I guess my stomach lining had gotten pretty thin.  One night, I remember using my cell phone to call my mom and I told her I needed her to come down to the room I was in and sit with me.  I had such a sharp stabbing, burning pain in my chest I honestly thought I was dying.  I even told my mom on our way to MGH that if something happened to me, would she look after Abby, my 3 year old cat.


It wasn't until I saw the doctor at my one week follow up that she was able to put all the symptoms together and tell me I probably had developed an ulcer. While I haven't seen a doctor to follow up on this, I still have to take 2 prescription antacid medications 2 times a day and tums are my best friend.  I even have to be careful about not getting too stressed.  Yeah like a 24 year old in college doesn't have enough things to worry about.


The one thing that really helped me manage the pain after being off pain meds basically 2 days after surgery was the cryo-boot.  This wonderful device was basically an ice pack that wrapped around my foot like a boot, that had a little cooler with it that held water and ice.  I can't explain how it works very well, but trust me, they are fantastic!

My foot in the cryo-boot right after surgery. 

So what did I learn after all that?

What doesn't kill you will make you stronger, and you only really know how strong you are when being strong is the only option you have.