Revision TKR Woohoo I'm starting to feel better!

[Nana moon 27]

Thank you xxx

 

[Ellejay]

@Nana moon 27
Good morning Ann, I hope the reduced morphine hasn't affected you too badly, I see you were posting in the very small hours, hopefully just hunger and not pain.

 

[Nana moon 27]

Lyn it's lovely to hear from you. Yes, I was flipping starving again I. The early hours. I reduced the morphine my 10 mg this morning too. So the total is a 20mg drop for a week and see how I go. It's funny because although it's very early and the stuff is in my system still, that my head has lost that weird sensation it has on this stuff at the level. We well see how I get on with 30mg am and 30mg pm and 4x2 Paracetamol. I had dropped to 3x2 paracetamol. So I thought if I dropped the morphine down and paracetamol up I'd see what happens x x x

Love Ann xxxx

 

[dogwheels]

Hi @Nana moon 27 - good luck with the reduced morphine, fingers X'd.

 

[TexasTee]

Hello all -

@Nana moon 27 - so glad to hear you are stepping down off of the morphine - you might want to look up specifically what to expect, I do not think scaling down from morphine is as easy as some of the other pain drugs so good to know what is "normal" and what is not. Good luck!

 

[Nana moon 27]

Hi @TexasTee I have to expect shakes and sweating that I have already anyway xxx
Love Ann xxx

 

[Nana moon 27]

I have reduced down from 80mg to 60mg (2x30mg am/pm) of morphine now. This is propped up with paracetamol (Tylenol) in between. I hope to stay on this dose until next Monday when I intend to drop it again. I am in nowhere near the pain I was in post surgery, so that tells me time to try and reduce this.

I have everything crossed that I can succeed in doing this. I was appalled to read that people abuse this for recreational purposes...WHAT????! Oh the very thought!. Ive hated this drug since day one of taking it and sounded like a stuck record player each time I've seen my GP. "I hate it, I wanna come off it,I hate it I wanna come off it!" It's made my head feel very strange since I was made to go on the higher doses. It affects your movements, your thinking, sequencing, the whole lot. It affects your reaction to situations, people and life. I don't get why anyone would want to take these recreationally.

The hallucinations are terrifying on higher doses. I've had ghosts strangling me dragging me towards a coffin, the same one in a desecrated church but that's more sinister because I'm being drawn in by something bad. I've had a bedroom full of great big writhing snakes, I've had two episodes of water dripping through the ceiling, I've had rats running over me in bed and the other night my poor granddaughter was scared stiff because I was watching black shadowy ghostly shapes flitting around me, the walls, the ceiling, as I walked from the kitchen, through the hall and up to the bedroom. I was fully aware of what was happening. When I got into bed she said "nanny what's going on? You're looking at things all over the place and your eyes are strange." I explained to her (she's 14 yrs old) that it is the effect of the strong medication I take. She was ok then and she lay in the bed next to me, snuggled up and started chatting. The hallucinations began to ease off. I think the distraction helped. Her mom (my daughter) laughed when she told her what had happened xx

I'm hoping I will sleep or at least catnap tonight.

 

[Nana moon 27]

Oh for goodness sakes. It's 1.17 am. I'm awake icing my knee which feels like boiling oil. Had to send husband downstairs to get the gel pack. It's just starting to cool down. But now I have backache and hipache. I'm sure it's the cutdown on the meds. Going to play a game on iPad xxxx ouch and yikes

 

[tiredwife]

@Nana moon 27 Sorry you are hurting! Hope the ice pack works. 7:23 pm here.

 

[Pumpkin]

Sounds like you are cutting down your medication too fast. If you have pain like that you probably need more medication, at least at night. You are only a month out, very early in recovery, decreasing too fast will set you back.
Hope you are feeling better with the ice.


Sent from my iPod touch using BoneSmart®
LTKR Sept 13 2011
Revision April 15 2014

 

[Nana moon 27]

Ended up taking 10mg morphine. The pains going x @Pumpkln is right. Too soon so I will try sticking with the day time reduction of 10mg not 20mg xxx my husband told me straight I needed to take it. I was trying to do too much too soon xx

It's 2.53 am. Dropping off while I'm posting!

Love Ann xxxx

 

[Pumpkin]

Here is more information on why we need good pain control during recovery from TKR.
https://bonesmart.org/forum/threads...ing-pain-after-a-tkr-and-the-pain-chart.7969/

 

[Nana moon 27]

@Pumpkln I would never have guessed that the burning was a form of pain. I knew about stiffness xxx thank you. That article really did help me understand better xxxxx

Gosh my eyes hurt. Good morning world I'm sooooo tired xxxx

Love Ann xox xxxx

 

[Ellejay]

Good morning all, I find it fascinating when people say the time they are posting, it bears no resemblance to the time at the botttom of the post, does anyone live in that time zone?
Sorry you were in pain @Nana moon 27, I hope tonight is better for you. My left knee has really been behaving itself the last couple of days, it's as if it is only just responding to the cortisone shot, but if don't think that can be the case, it was nearly three weeks ago. Never mind, I'm not complaining, a few days without any painkillers must be good for the rest of my body (until I realise I can at last have a glass of wine).

 

[Nana moon 27]

I've had the most dreadful night up until @Pumpkln and believe it or not my husband made me see sense about dropping down my meds too early in recovery. Let me tell you here and now it is not worth it. It ended up not just being my knee feeling like it contained boiling oil, which I found out courtesy of Pumpk1n sending me a kind post and a link (it's about 3posts back and well worth a read) to the Bonesmart pain relief info.

My husband actually said to me that I needed the meds. It's too soon etc etc etc and I needed to take my own advice for once. Hate to admit it but hands up, he's right. He ended up sleeping downstairs with the door wide open in case I needed him, with his mobile phone nearby so I could ring him if he went into a deep sleep. He just brought my cup of tea and breakfast up and I remembered to thank him for his help.

The other thing is that I've realised is that I'm trying do do stuff round the house. Don't get me wrong I'm doing nothing like vacuuming, just a bit of washing up, tidying the cushions, making a sandwich or warming something up in the microwave and the occasional cup of tea. I've also been trying to walk short distances without the crutches too, to see if this helps with my hip and back. The pain is all TKR side which tells it's own story.

Now I'm awake properly, I'm in considerable pain. It's going from where my waist curves in, down to the back of my hip where it joins the leg, it feels like I've been kicked up outer back of the back of my leg where it joins my butt and my knee hurts and is hot. Maybe I need to wait until 6 weeks before cutting the meds down. I just don't know. All I know is that I hurt. @Josephine, I'm sorry to disturb you but I would appreciate your thoughts please. Thank you.

Love Nana moon 27 xxx

 

[Ellejay]

@Nana moon 27
Oh Ann, I'm so sorry your pain is back with a vengeance, you have put up with so much, it must finish soon surely?
I can't offer any advice, but I just wanted to say that I'm here, listening and sympathising.
Lots of hugs, Lyn xxxx

 

[kvhundley]

@Nana moon 27 it appears that the post-op medications may be different in the UK vs US? I see most posts from Bonesmarters in the US are on Oxycodone vs morphine in UK. speaking of medications, I have my two doctors again saying two different things about meds before surgery. My pain level is about a 5 on most days with Tylenol 3 but a 6-7 without it. Dr 2 says no medications before surgery unless it is OTC. For those of you on the other side of surgery w/ severe osteo arthritis, did you take meds before surgery?

 

[Nana moon 27]

Hi yes. They had to put me on morphine 30 mg taken at night with paracetamol (Tylenol) from August last year as I had become used to all the painkillers like Tramadol, dihydrocodeine etc.

To add you procedures to your signature press your avatar pic. Press profile page. At the top of the page you will see a little grey coloured tab with your name on it, private message etc. Press your name then a list of stuff appears. You select signature, make your changes save changes and it's done!!! Xxxx hope this helps you x

 

[Chihuahuan]

@kvhundley
I just took OTC meds for pain pre-surgery but my pain is not as severe as yours. It's definitely something to discuss with your surgeon but ask why if it doesn't make sense to you.
I had Oxycodone post surgery and a cocktail of other pain meds that they gradually reduced before I went home. Based on Ann's hallucination descriptions morphine was part of the mix --.
Jen

 

[Pumpkin]

@kvhundley ,
Here is how to create your signature,
https://bonesmart.org/forum/threads/how-to-create-a-signature.14728/