High tolerance to pain medication?

I recently had a seton placed and a stricture in my rectum cut open and was initially given 5-10mg of hydrocodone to take every 4-6 hours. The surgery was on a Friday and I had significant pain once the numbing wore off, so I took the pills all weekend and I swear the most they did was make me sleepy. I had a follow up with my surgeon last Tuesday which was depressing because she basically said this is as good as it's going to get until I can get my Crohns under control. So I have a quarter sized hole in my butt and a bright red seton. On top of a horrible stricture which she says nothing solid has even the slightest likelihood of getting through (luckily I haven't had a solid BM since my resection 3 years ago). I told her the hydrocodone a weren't much help so she wrote me another script for 5mg percocets. She said she was willing to cover my pain management needs for the foreseeable future and wrote me a script for 150 percocets and we will meet again in 3 weeks to follow-up. Honestly, this is all so depressing. I feel like I'm giving up. My mom drove me to the appointment and we met my husband there and I started crying and I think it upset my mom and husband even more (mostly my mom). i have an appointment at the Cleveland Clinic on 9/19 that I am hoping will offer more answers in regards to medicinal intervention (I have been on all biologics).

But anyway, I'm totally off topic . So the percocets definitely work better when I take 15mg at once, but the relief literally lasts 2 hours! I don't know if this has to do with me having 3 feet less of small bowel than the average person or how frequently I use the bathroom, but it's ridiculous. My daily intake would knock out anyone twice my size. Does anyone else notice this? It could be any medications in general and I just don't realize it. Typically I only take humira and I haven't taken opiates since my surgery 3 years ago (at which point I was also on a high dose, but worked my way up to that dose gradually).

And also, if anyone has any ideas about how to get my crohns under control without surgery I would love to hear. I love love love my surgeon, she is good at what she does and has always taken great care of me when I needed it, but really all she can offer me at this point is more surgery and pain relief, and while I appreciate the pain relief, this is not something I want to rely on inevitably - I need an end goal in Sight.

Post Edited (Myrne) : 8/23/2016 7:00:36 PM (GMT-6)

I must have a fairly high tolerance to pain meds, considering I used to be on enough oxycodone to knock an elephant out and I was still functioning. After I weaned off the oxycodone (a grim process, as I had become physically addicted) I was off all opiates for 2 years. Now I just take codeine on an as-needed basis. It does work, but the effects don't last that long - about 4 hours.

If you want to try to avoid surgery you would be better off seeing a GI rather than a colorectal surgeon, although if you have tried all biologics (does that include Entyvio and Stelara?), that leaves nothing mainstream left to try. You could look into anti-MAP therapy, clinical trials, medical marijuana, low dose naltrexone (LDN), and elemental diet. Out of those options, I would say the first two are your best bet for achieving remission and even those are highly uncertain.

If money is no object, there are numerous supplements you could try which claim to help Crohn's; in some cases studies even back up those claims. However, I'm not sure I've heard of a single case where somebody has failed all biologics and yet responded to turmeric.

What would surgery involve if you were to have it?