pain meds

[jb94102]

Thanks to you all i do appreciate each and everyone of you for real ,as you can see its another miserable night here 2:20 am and i cant sleep tp save my self these hebbie geebies are horrible really bad tonight .When i laydown it seems to worsen ,my doc told me to gradually go off the percocets and i said i would if i had enough to do so only had like 4 that surely isnt enough but still wouldnt prescibe me anymore said try vicodin which i cant take ,nor darvocet,nor altram cant take anything like advil or motrin because im on plavix for my heart...so he said well i guess its tyelenol i laughed inside cause those are useless !! My look at me ramble i so apologize i do truly thank all of you and may godd bless each and everyone ............ from tryin to go to sleep jim LOL

 

[JenniferG]

Can you at least try cutting the ones you have left in half?

 

[klinger]

Dont these Doctors know they,re turning some of us into Junkies?

 

[jb94102]

Jen i did hon i took a half one on sat decided no more than i had and couldnt get anymore i would just quit them once and for all .But i do know this i will have to be in real bad shape before i would consider taking percocet again.This is the first time in my 54 yrs i have exsperienced anything like this i never did drugd and i dont drink i did smoke alot of cigs but quit those 4 yrs ago ,but these withdrawls make smoking quitting a cake walk it was nothing compared to this ..... JIM

 

[klinger]

Happend to me when I was given tramadol back in the days when first diagnosed with rheumatoid, it didnt last long but I never thought I,d ever go through cold turkey syndrome!!...cheers klinger

 

[JenniferG]

I'm on tramadol, so we'll see how it goes for me. As for making Junkies.... it is high risk drugs, but if I consider the pain, I'll take the drugs. My biggest fear of this surgery was the post op pain. I do think that there should be a more specific plan for withdrawing and reducing. OK, now that we have you dependent on these drugs, let's start a reduction timing plan. Tell us how to do it, and be willing to monitor us for a couple of months if necessary. Figure that it just part of the process and do what you need to do to treat us correctly. Not just say "too much, no more".

 

[elcammeno]

jb-- I understand what you are going through as I am going through the same thing. I have taken tylenol-(2) 650 mg each at a time. Now I take advil (3) 200 mg each. I am to take either one 8 hrs apart but like at night, terrible pain awakens me after 4 hrs & I suffer another few hrs until I can take the med again. I don't know why but daytime is better. It drives me crazy. I then try ice & sometimes it works & sometimes not. A person doesn't know what to do. There are these arthritic gels , voltaren or solareze that can be prescribed by your surgeon. It is an n-said. It was approved by the FDA this past fall. Your incision has to be completely healed. Now my surgeon dosesn't want me to use it but my family dr says it is okay to use. So I really am perplexed as I feel I should do as my surgeon says. If you talk to your surgeon about it I sure would like to hear from you about his explanation about it.
Sharon

 

[elcammeno]

Kath--Please let me know what your surgeon says about the gels. My surgeon said no to it even though my incision is healed. I so want to know how other surgeons feel about this gel.

 

[JenniferG]

Kath--Please let me know what your surgeon says about the gels. My surgeon said no to it even though my incision is healed. I so want to know how other surgeons feel about this gel.

Why did your surgeon say no?

 

[Jamie]

JB....my heart goes out to you and I pray that you were able to sleep a little after you posted so early this morning. It is a horrible thing you are going through and hopefully things will get better real soon. Do try a heating pad on the small of your back if you have not tried that yet when your legs jump. Maybe you can catch a nap during the day too...I had to sleep whenever I could get there during my withdrawal. Drink as much water or fluids as you can to keep flushing your system. And know that people here have been where you are and understand.

 

[Doug]

Besides the leg heebie jeebies, are any of you getting nausea when you quit the pills?

 

[Skeet]

I'm getting nausea, headaches, cranky, irritable... sounds a lot like my old PMS! Whole body aches.

 

[JenniferG]

Is this just when cutting back or off the percs or something else as well?

 

[Skeet]

I am cutting back on Hydrocodone. Was on 10/325, asked the doc for 5/500 so I could cut back and then cut those in half to get to 1/4 of the original dosage. Never had much trouble with anything else except caffeine.

Oh, and the other day out of nowhere I got the worst case of shakes/tremors over my whole body. It may have been low blood sugar, but it was something.

 

[JenniferG]

My doc had me on 5/500 from the start. So I started low. maybe that is why stopping was not as brutal as it has been for others. But I also have been taking the tramadol right along and switched to vics. So my problems may be yet to come.

 

[Doug]

Nope Skeet, I have been getting those shakes too. Several times, while I've been shopping or working around the house, my quads have started just quivering.

I was just getting concerned because I've been getting nauseous for 3-4 days now
and I was concerned that I was "blowing out" my stomach again with NSAIDs.

Jenn, I was cutting back in gradual amounts. I really thought I would be off of them totally now. But there are probably three days a week that I get that DEEP ache and on over the counter stuff helps..

 

[JenniferG]

Do you think the quad twitching has to do with the withdrawal or maybe just a stage of healing and regeneration? If it was addiction wouldn't the twitch be more wide spread and not specifically where the surgery affected?

 

[beachcomber]

probably has to do with how hard you push yourself some days, don't you think? If you were less active and demanding of yourself you probably wouldn't have that pain at this point. BUT you had the TKR so you COULD do the activities and live the life you want... so there ya go.

Anyway, that is what I tell myself when I am really swelling and aching after a particularly rough week at school and/or workouts.

 

[JenniferG]

OK so today I cooked/baked 4-5 different things, did house work, laundry, bunch of errands and washed and vaccumed the car and my knees hate me. I make a point of parking further away than I used to cause walking burns calories. You know I took max dose of all my stuff.
My scars are extra sensitive today. Is that anything anyone experienced at or around 7 weeks?

 

[Skeet]

My scar was extra sensitive at ~ 7 weeks. It is fine now at 20+ but I think it actually resolved around 10-12 weeks. After that time, I haven't really noticed it at all.