Pain after surgery please help

I had small bowel resection 18 days ago and I have crohns disease. They tried oxycodone 5 MG. No relief. Went to er and they did CT scan and said all looks good. Told me I can take ibuprofen 2 times a day for several days because it's all that helps pain but on crohns site they say stop that not good for crohns. I do have percecet 5 MG. And says I can take 1 to 2 every 4 hours. I'm scared I want pain to get better. I held out trying not to take ibuprofen this morning but pain got bad again. Anyone with suggestions? I did take 1 percecet this morning should I take 2 from now on?

Barbz, absolutely do not take the Ibuprofen. I saw your post yesterday in the crohns forum & several of their seasoned members said the same. NSAIDS are off the table for people with crohns. If I remember correctly it was your surgeon that told you to take Ibuprofen, he apparently knows nothing about crohns. I have both crohns & UC & have been told not to take it. I am not sure where you got the Percocet at but I would speak with my GI dr about what is going on. In this forum if we are under the care of a pain mgt dr we are not allowed to take pain meds from any dr except him.

Hope you get to feeling better soon. Not sure why you are having this type of pain 18 days out.

Also my pain Dr. Knew I was going for surgery and never told me my surgeon could not send me home wth pain meds. I will talk to him. He also wants me on medical cannabis

I'm calling all docs first thing Monday. I been trying to do more thinking maybe I'm being a baby.

Barbz.Talk to your Pain Doctor.They're the most important one you have so Straydog was right,you don't want to get dismissed from Pain Management.

PMDs usually write you something extra for Surgery or tell you to take what the Surgeon gives you.

But it's Very Important that you let your PMD know about it.

I wish you the best.

Take care and God Bless.

Rick

Let him know that what the surgeon gave does nothing for your pain. Since Ibuprofen helped it does sound like you have inflammation going on. Perhaps he can figure out something to give you that will work for you. Was your surgery done laproscopic? Are you walking, walking is extremely important after surgery. I am not talking a marathon walk either 2-3 short walks a day will help a lot.

Take care.

It may take a bit for the Entocort to kick in too. I was on it for years & it helped the symptoms a good deal. Was this an open surgery? Yes, you are correct nerves have to heal on their own. With that being the case a dr cannot tell you how long before they heal either. If this is true nerve pain going on narcotics will not have any effect on it at all. There are medications for nerve pain but the problem with them is it can take a couple of months to get to a therapeutic level for them to work. A lot of times people will give up on them because the relief is not immediate. I think you have inflammation going on since you responded to the Ibuprofen. Years ago I fell & broke my arm. I had a very strong narcotic to take, which did nothing for the pain I was having. My neighbor is an RN & he came over the day I fell & I was telling him about how the narcotic was not touching the pain. He said you have inflammation going on thats why. Because of the crohns he said go down to the drug store & get some Zantac OTC & take it with Ibuprofen. I was able to do this without tearing my gut up. I did it short term until I could deal with the pain. No, I am telling you to do the same either & it could hinder your healing process too. But I get the inflammation thing.

Hang in there it will get better.

I got in to pm today and told him what surgeon put me on and told him pain level is down some so he told me he thinks the worst pain is behind me. He thinks the pain that took me back to hospital was trapped gas. And if I'm hurting more take percocet and when not bad take norco

Barbz, the trapped gas from lap surgery can be more painful than post op pain. Been there done that & was quite miserable. Walking they say is the only thing to get it moving, this is why I asked if you were up walking around. Hopefully you are on the downhill side of things now.

Take care.

I'm 3 weeks po today and just passed so much gas it was unreal. I guess it's normal?

I had to be super careful with food after the small bowel resection for months. Otherwise I had severe & uncontrollable diarrhea. I was on bland soft food for what seemed like forever. In the hospital it was soup with rice in it on the 5th day.

Currently on Imuran & Entocorte. Remicade induced Lupus as I had developed antibodies. Went on Humira which was so easy but it kept my psoriasis in full bloom & drug induced Lupus. It just became too much to handle.

Easy on your diet for awhile.

Barbz:
Oh my goodness . . . a whole sandwich?

I have had extensive and numerous intestinal surgeries and I can tell you that the you will better serve your recovering digestive system by rethinking your approach to meals and eating.

The intestines do not like to be handled or manipulated as is the case in resection surgery. Motility of the intestine can be slowed with constipation followed by periods of diarrhea, as the intestines adjust to the trauma of surgery.

You want to be kind and gentle to the digestive system and not overwhelm the intestines with too much volume of food. Just because you ate a whole sandwich before surgery does not mean that your intestines can tolerate a whole surgery after surgery, even 3 weeks post operative. It is too much bulk and you will feel miserable hours to days later.

Small portion sizes, 1/4 to 1/3 cup.

Frequent small snacks as opposed to formal meals, a form of grazing.

Sip, sip, sip on clear fluids though out the day as opposed to drinking a larger 8 oz. glass of fluid at a given time. The intestines are best able to absorb fluids by sipping frequently through the day.

Keep to easy to digest foods with low residual by-products. Choose Rice Krispy cereal instead of Shredded Wheat cereal, for example. Choose a baked sweet potato instead of baked beans or navy beans. Avoid vegetables with long, stringy non-soluble fiber (asparagus, green beans, kale, celery, the membrane of an orange or grapefruit). Avoid gas producing foods (cauliflower, broccoli, lima beans, kidney beans).

But, above all, keep to small portion sizes to ease digestive distress.
- Karen -

We each react different ways to surgery, and the same person might have different reactions each time.

I have multiple surgeries a year- many very extensive requiring lengthy stays. No problem-piece of cake.

A few years ago I had nasal surgery. My nose had been broken twice: in a rugby game, and when a horse refused a jump but my body decided to go anyway. I was lucky to have a few years in remission in my teens:)

Anyway-I kept getting severe sinus infections with a few threatening the mastoid bones. I told the dr, while I didn't want another surgery, at least this would be a simple procedure.

In the recovery room, I had a difficult time getting a full breath. Lots of gauze is shoved up the nose-looks quite lovely. I also have lung disease. For some reason, not being able to breathe through my nose called me to freak out. I have breathing issues on a good day. I went home after the procedure and figured things would calm down-after all, I could breathe through my mouth with no issue.

After about 5 hrs at home I called my friend who took me to the ER. Got pulled back right away since vitals were crazy. Turned out to be a true, severe, panic attack. Never had one. Ended up admitted since my CO2 levels were way to high, due to hyperventilating. I also got to the point that all my muscles were locking down. I couldn't walk from the gurney the 3 feet to the CT scan .Spent 2 days inpatient for a problem that wasn't really a problem. Once the gauze could be removed, everything calmed down.

And all this was due to a simple outpatient procedure.

I was soooo incredibly embarrassed. Drs and nurses were extremely understanding and assured me panic attacks are true medical problems.

If you are having panic attacks, contact your general doc and something can be prescribed. Recovering from surgery is hard enough without having another issue to deal with.

I hope things improve for you