Thanks, @
Jamie...I called the surgeon's office yesterday. First I encountered a nurse who was quite snarky with me. She informed me they never give out a prescription for more than 30 pills, and since I was on Percocet, I had to personally show up for a written prescription. I told her we live over an hour away and that would be difficult, to which she replied, "when people get sick of driving in here for them, they ask to be switched to Hydrocodone, which we can call in." Like I was supposed to know this. She then informed me that THEY would be weaning me off the meds, which in my mind was in complete contradiction to what the doc had told me (he said my knee was in charge, and how and when I tapered off was my decision). At that point I decided to give up on this conversation and call the surgeon direct when I returned from PT.
It wasn't long after I returned home, when I received a call from the surgeon's physician's assistant. He was very nice and started the convo with "I understand you have questions about tapering off the meds." I told him I did, and briefly told him what the nurse told me. He told me they COULD not prescribe more than 30 pills at a time, and I would have to call him when my supply was running low. I told him, well, at this rate, you will be hearing from me about every 5 days. He told me that was no problem, they were not going to ever leave me hanging for meds, and that we would work together as time went on. I thanked him for that, explained that before this incident with my knee I never took any medication, so am completely unfamiliar with what drug is what or how all this pain management worked, except I want to be comfortable so I can heal and do my PT, then get off them when I don't need them for pain anymore and get on with my life, drug free. I also told him driving over an hour every week for a piece of paper was a problem. He told me not to worry about it, because it was already determined I would probably be ready for hydrocodone for my next prescription, and they can call that in to our pharmacy.
So that made me feel better. His call made me wonder if he overheard the nurse earlier that morning. She is the first person I've encountered through this process that had an attitude and seemed to contradict everything I was being told about my treatment. And, of course, having just taken a percocet before I spoke with her, probably made me feel it was a bigger problem than it was.
So that's my story and I'm sticking to it, except to say I have now extended my time time between meds from every 4 hours to every 4.5 hours, and am doing well with that.
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