I might be allergic to morphine, how will post-op be handled? (sorry long)

That is rough Gail. You are a trooper! You are right I will not dread it because I know it will turn my life around. If I have to I will grit my teeth and take it. I just cross my fingers it won't have to be that way.

There are lots of great antiemetics they could give you. I'm a wake-up-puking type and always tell them this. Sometimes they have to experiment a bit with what they give me till it's right, but they're nice and attentive.

If I were you I'd communicate with anesthesiology to see if they can help sort this out. My experience is that surgeons are pretty useless in that ballpark. There might be certain drugs that are less problematic in general than others for your type of reaction. I barf from morphine, for example, but not from Fentanyl or Dilaudid. Demerol does nothing for pain for me, but renders me incommunicado while still being fully aware and fully in PAIN. Hate the stuff. Some people love it, though.

Tramadol might as well be candy for me. Other people swear by it.

The On-Q pain "ball" thing uses a local anesthetic, and I've seen people rave about its effectiveness.

I had spinal anesthesia (plus general) and pain med delivery with my hystie and that was MARVELOUS. Great pain relief with a tiny fraction of the medication it would have taken in IV, hence much less belly grouchiness (and subsequent constipation).

EN ty ty ty
Amazing info and actually will take that txt with me to SLC. I will ask the surgeon if I can get a hold of the anesthesiologist and maybe get some problems worked out before they start. I have very little experience when it comes to acutally taking pain meds.
I am getting super anxious now that my appointment with my surgeon is coming up. I am running around making sure I am dotting all my 'I's' and crossing all my 'T's'. My husband thinks I am a freak when I stress. haha I don't blame him for thinking that. I am a planner through and through! *whisper* maybe a bit anal..... So I am sure that I will post many more things in the next month.

Thanks E, I will keep this information just in case I ever need it. So far, the DS is the only time I really needed the help with pain. Childbirth was natural and the other time it was needed they gave me Dilaudid which was useless.

I understand your aversion to being given drugs you know will make you sick.  I have a very high tolerance for pain meds, but cannot take any  type of hydrocodone: Lortab, Vicodin, etc. (there are many different types). It makes me so nauseous that I developed pancreatitis back in 2000 because of it.  Now I steer clear.  I just tell the medical staff that I have a "sensitivity", rather than an allergy.

For my DS surgery I had Dilaudid.  It just makes me itch!!  Hopefully you can find something that will work for you!

Donna

Poor thing :-(. Dilaudid is my miracle drug. Love the stuff.

Yeah, it's helpful to not say you're "allergic" to a med. It's better to detail what you took and what happened. To stick with the pain meds: I tell them in so many words that I barf my gizzards out with morphine and that I get incommunicado and no pain relief or stonedness with Demerol. They're always nice and cooperative about avoiding those.

Actually, one time, can't remember which procedure, they put an ALLERGY sticker on my chart to keep the Demerol away. Apparently some doc loved the stuff :-).

My father,  who is an anesthesiologist,  loves dilaudid.

And definitely do NOT say or assume you are "allergic."  You probably aren't.

Also,  just as an aside - some things are inherited/generic and some things are not. Do not assume than an "allergy" to a particular medication or type of medication (which you likely don't have) is in that category.

Loves it for use in patients, for himself, or both?

Both.  He's had two spinal surgeries in the last year and that's what he chose for himself.

I cannot take several of the commonly used pain meds: Codeine, morphine, vicodin in any form.  So post-op pain management takes some extra work but it is doable.  For my DS post-op pain management I was given Toradol and that was like a miracle drug for me.  However, they would only give it to me for 24 hours and then we needed to find something else.  Eventually we settled on liquid ibuprofen (Motrin) and that worked just fine.  Yes, I realize many people say not to use it after the DS but it's what we used during my hospital stay and I lived. :-)

For a later surgery (not DS related) we had to play thd pain-meds-game again and this time, with my previous experience, they went straight to Toradol.  Thankfully I was able to be on this for the entire time I was in the hospital.  Upon discharge I was given Darvocet, which I tolerated very well.  Sadly, that has since been taken off the market.

Talk with your surgeon about this ahead of time and make sure he has a game plan beforehand because you definitely DO NOT want to be playing around with this in a post-surgical state.