Bit sore today

Finally got in to have the cute little umbilical hernia I had repaired.

Originally slated for 12:30 this afternoon, they had a cancellation and I was able to walk in the door 2 hours early. While repaired, I now have a belly full of very uncomfortable air and 4 holes in my belly. Three on the side from where they inserted the labiscropic tool and one over where the hernia was. While I am glad it is fixed, This hurt worse than I expected.

What I do find funny, I work a dangerous job, I have dangerous hobbies, and I have crohns disease yet this is my first time under the knife. When I was in for pre-admission testing, the nurse was asking me about pain. I had none. She wanted to give me a level from 1 to 10 about what would keep me from sleeping. I did not have a number for her. I have a slightly torn rotator cuff in my right arm, it has never kept me up. I tore up my left hand with a hole saw a few years ago. I got 9 stitches and got back from hospital in time to go to work.

Even right now, sitting and laying down are not painful. Standing is uncomfortable, and going from one activity to another does hurt. I confused the nurses when I told them I did not want pain killers. They got me a prescription anyway, but I am not going to pick them up. I simply do not hurt that much that I feel I need them.

I did get the side eye about this, makes me wonder if I am strange or something?

This is how I got the hernia, btw.  Moving a literally ton of CO2 in and out of the night club.

Its funny how people who don't handle pain tend to look at us who eat it.

In my opinion, it's all about what KIND of pain you are in.

Is it the sort of satisfying pain you get from labor: "The muscles in my shoulders/back/legs hurt from all the work I did, shopping wood, repairing the barn and fixing the fence." or "I scraped the E36 M3 out of my arms, but that oil cooler installation is frikkin top notch..." 

Or is it scary pain that indicates that something is wrong: "Someone is jabbing an ice pick thru my right lung when I breath" or "My shoulder feels like a gearbox filled with gravel". 

Theory: The addition of "rate your pain on a scale of 1-10" as an unmeasurable "vital sign" contributes massively to the opioid epidemic. 

Let yourself heal up well. I had one repaired about 20 years ago and it's been great since. And yeah, I never filled the pain script either.

I regret not responding to the 1-10 question, after my bypass, with, "If 10 is William Wallace being disembowelled at the end of Braveheart, about 3."

What an odd question, I thought.  It is an extremely variable scale, I'd think.

In reply to OHSCrifle :

true. Check out some of the documentaries on the sackler family and perdue pharma. Unreal. 
 

but yeah they came up with this, injected it into the medical system and pushed that pain was a vital sign and needed treated. 

"Chances are at one time or another a school nurse or physician’s assistant has asked you to describe your pain level using this scale of 1-10 (and animated faces) to determine a course of action. Introduced in the 1990s, implementation of the pain scale coincided with the proliferation of painkillers, shifting the goal of healthcare from treating ailments to managing pain and therefore empowering doctors to fill as many prescriptions as that took. "

In reply to mad_machine :

Our 2nd oldest doesn't really feel pain either. It's like he *feels*, but it doesn't actually cause him pain or discomfort. 

I am feeling it a bit more this morning.  I am almost perfectly fine sitting here.  Same with laying on my back.  Standing is uncomfortable,  It's anything in between that is painful.  I think I will be sitting here most of the day.

Streetwise nailed it. The reality is you can only judge the scale by what you have experienced so far. If falling off you bike at 6 years old is your worst pain so far it's much easier to have this question lead to overkill in the meds prescription.

And glad to hear you are doing better mad machine!

I have a full window screen in my gut to fix two hernias. The first days weren't too bad. The next few weeks hurt like hell as things started to heal back up. I don't regret the surgery, but the three tiny holes in my stomach hid the true nature of the messing around they did underneath.

slefain said:

the three tiny holes in my stomach hid the true nature of the messing around they did underneath.

Those are the parts that hurt right now.  

well, it's been 48 hours since I went in for surgery,  feeling a lot more like myself today.  Still beaten up, but I can move around without too much in the way of stabby pains.  While my doc is not one to put restrictions on me,  I am listening to his advice closely.  "your body will know what it can and cannot do".  So far I am only letting it do what it can.

Coughing and sneezing are not fun.

mad_machine said:

well, it's been 48 hours since I went in for surgery,  feeling a lot more like myself today.  Still beaten up, but I can move around without too much in the way of stabby pains.  While my doc is not one to put restrictions on me,  I am listening to his advice closely.  "your body will know what it can and cannot do".  So far I am only letting it do what it can.

Coughing and sneezing are not fun.

My first sneeze was about 5 days after my bypass surgery.

Did not enjoy.

 There's more to pain that also involves body kinesthetics, recovery times, and even to exercise habits. People who excersise regularly and well, just seem to have less pain than the normal populace and I don't yet understand why.

mad_machine said:

well, it's been 48 hours since I went in for surgery,  feeling a lot more like myself today.  Still beaten up, but I can move around without too much in the way of stabby pains.  While my doc is not one to put restrictions on me,  I am listening to his advice closely.  "your body will know what it can and cannot do".  So far I am only letting it do what it can.

Coughing and sneezing are not fun.

Are you bracing with a pillow?

GIRTHQUAKE said:

 There's more to pain that also involves body kinesthetics, recovery times, and even to exercise habits. People who excersise regularly and well, just seem to have less pain than the normal populace and I don't yet understand why.

mad_machine said:

well, it's been 48 hours since I went in for surgery,  feeling a lot more like myself today.  Still beaten up, but I can move around without too much in the way of stabby pains.  While my doc is not one to put restrictions on me,  I am listening to his advice closely.  "your body will know what it can and cannot do".  So far I am only letting it do what it can.

Coughing and sneezing are not fun.

Are you bracing with a pillow?

I am, it makes it tolerable,  it sucks though if it happens unexpectedly, as sneezes sometimes do.  And yes, while I am not a body builder by any stretch the imagination, I do try to keep myself moving and strong.  Little soft around the belly, and that was where the problems began.  Once I can exercize, I will have to do some build up of my core muscles.

I do look at it this way.  I would rather deal with this than having tweaked my back.

From wisdom teeth to foot surgery I've only ever used Tylenol or ibuprofen for pain. I don't like pain, but since I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at an early age I've lived with pain every day of my life. As others stated it's relative. And that pain chart is dangerous for sure.

Glad you're feeling better!!   I wanted to provide a bit of perspective from the nursing side of the fence: the pain scale is just a tool, a single piece of data.  There are multiple other data points to look at to assess pain as part of a complete physical assessment.  You don't blindly get administered PRN narcotics around the clock solely based on a pain scale rating. 

Also, it's important do distinguish post-surgical pain from chronic pain, orthopedic pain in joints, post workout pain, etc.  Regarding the scrip for pain meds after surgery - for many procedures, you are given a pretty hefty dose of local injected into the port sites and other incisions.  This will eventually wear off in 4-12 hours depending on the type of local anesthetic- usually about 10 minutes after the local DrugMart or whatever has closed.   At midnight when it starts getting worse, the only option you have if you didn't fill the scrip on the way home, is to go to the ED, which is sub-optimal for a bunch of reasons. The couple days' worth of tylenol3 and such are designed to get you through the acute pain for a day or so until the surgical site calms down. 

Streetwiseguy said:

What an odd question, I thought.  It is an extremely variable scale, I'd think.

It's an individual scale because it's an individual response.  You can't measure pain in an absolute sense, the way you do blood pressure or heart rate, you have to ask the subjective impression from the patient.  A scale like this at least lets them get relative assessments over time from an individual -- if he says it was a 2 before but a couple hours later it's a 6, that tells the doctor something.

In most cases painkillers aren't actually required for healing, they're "just" to make that process more bearable for the patient.  Since that goal is individual, the metric for determining it needs to be individual as well.

As for the original statement about prescriptions -- I will generally accept the prescription, fill it, and then make my own decision about whether or not to actually take the pills.  That said, there are some cases where the pain killing is important outside of just "feeling better".  For example, I was told when I bruised/cracked a rib (they're not sure exactly which it was) that the pain of breathing tended to make people breathe very shallowly, and sustained over time that poses a risk of pneumonia.  Sometimes the side effects of "manning up" have undesirable consequences of their own.

XLR99 (Forum Supporter) said:

Glad you're feeling better!!   I wanted to provide a bit of perspective from the nursing side of the fence: the pain scale is just a tool, a single piece of data.  There are multiple other data points to look at to assess pain as part of a complete physical assessment.  You don't blindly get administered PRN narcotics around the clock solely based on a pain scale rating. 

Also, it's important do distinguish post-surgical pain from chronic pain, orthopedic pain in joints, post workout pain, etc.  Regarding the scrip for pain meds after surgery - for many procedures, you are given a pretty hefty dose of local injected into the port sites and other incisions.  This will eventually wear off in 4-12 hours depending on the type of local anesthetic- usually about 10 minutes after the local DrugMart or whatever has closed.   At midnight when it starts getting worse, the only option you have if you didn't fill the scrip on the way home, is to go to the ED, which is sub-optimal for a bunch of reasons. The couple days' worth of tylenol3 and such are designed to get you through the acute pain for a day or so until the surgical site calms down. 

Looking at my scripts.. I am not sure what they were expecting.   But Percocet 5/325 every 4 hours for pain?  From looking it up online, that combo is for moderate to severe pain? Plus stool softeners to keep me from getting constipated and an anti-nausia med to keep me from puking.. no thanks. I can take itty bitty stabby pains every so often.

Wrote up for 30 of them too.