Medications after surgery - pills?

I'm booked for surgery on May 22nd (in Guelph) and had a few questions that I completely forgot to ask the surgeon when I met with him. I'm on a few medications for anxiety/depression/thyroid/birth control. Typically, I take them at night before bed - the day of surgery, would taking that many meds by mouth be okay? Just concerned with missing a day which for some, are okay, but the others, not so much.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

You should be ok as long as you're taking them before the time given to you to be NPO (nothing by mouth.) Have they told you yet when to stop eating and drinking anything the night before surgery? For most doctors they make the cutoff midnight.

The best thing would be to contact your surgeon's office and ask them, though. Also, you don't say what kind of surgery you're going to have, but be aware that if you have RNY you will need a second birth control method for a while afterward, as the birth control pills may not be absorbed well enough to work! And if any of your psych meds are extended release versions, these may need to be changed to the regular versions as well.

Good luck!

Thanks! I'm having the RNY, and from what they told me, the one medication - Wellbutrin may have some malabsorbtion issues but they said to cru**** up and it'll be fine. I'm really only on the BCP to keep the monthly issues monthly and regular. The day before surgery there's no issues with taking my meds since I take them late enough (and before the cutoff time for eating/drinking). It's more the day of surgery that I was worried about - if i'll be allowed to take pills, or will they be crushed? maybe some come in liquid or injection form. The Anaesthesiologist indicated that it's okay to skip them for a few days but my brain and body says that's a horrible idea since being a few hours late, makes me start to feel ill. I'll talk to the nurse during my preop next week, just wanted to see what everyone else had experienced.

Oh, duh, you did say "day of surgery", didn't you. I misread that when I saw you say that you take them at night. Yes, talk to the nurse, but they will work with you to make sure you get the meds you need. I was able to swallow small pills the day of surgery and afterward, so there was nothing to be crushed. It depends on your doctor and center's typical procedures. I'm kind of surprised to see an anesthesiologist advising you on meds after surgery, that would be the surgeon's call as far as I'm concerned.

Good luck!

Well to be fair, I did kinda ask him about how to take meds after lol but, I just wanted to see if he would know, I wasn't really going to take his advice, i'd take advise from here first ha ha ha!

My surgeon gave me very strict instructions what I could or could not take the morning of surgery. I took my lisinopril (blood pressure med) with a tiny sip of water. That's it. I didn't take my allergy pill and I didn't take my Wellbutrin. I had been taking an aspirin daily, but they made me stop that a couple of weeks before surgery.

The Wellbutrin is tricky. If they've told you the Wellbutrin you are taking is okay to crush, that should be fine. However, many times Wellbutrin is prescribed as an extended release which is not okay to crush or split. I had been taking the extended release, but my primary care doctor switched me to non-extended release about a month or so before surgery. I had to get used to taking it at night and in the morning, 12 hours apart, to replicate the benefits of the extended release.

As I mentioned, I did not take my Wellbutrin the day of surgery. I worried that I would feel awful without it, but honestly my body was so mixed up with surgery I didn't notice. I spent most of the day after surgery sleeping. The following day around noon, the nurses brought me my Wellbutrin tablet split into four pieces. I took each piece 15 minutes apart with an ounce of water. That is how I have been taking it ever since. It is quite a pain especially since I have to take it twice a day, but I tried crushing it instead of splitting and it was bitter and nasty. Maybe after I can eat peanut butter again I'll try crushing it and mixing it in a tbsp of peanut butter. There is unfortunately not a liquid or dissolve version of Wellbutrin.

After surgery they told me my blood pressure was fine and to stop taking the lisinopril. So that was great news. :) Makes it easier to manage meds when you can stop taking some of them!

It's been a while since I was on Wellbutrin, but those aren't very big pills, are they?  Why would you need to split them into so many pieces?  And why would you need to wait so long between each piece?  I mean, if that works for you, then I'm sure it's find to do it that way.  But if it 's quite a pain, I'm just wondering why it would be necessary?

When I had my surgery I spoke to my doctors and they found the same meds but in liquid form and some in chewable form I was on them till I heal and then  went back to the pills  Speak to your doctor

I took all my regular meds the day of my surgery with no problem.  I skipped my morning meds that morning but then my surgery was about 8 am and I took my evening meds about 8 pm.  I had no trouble swallowing them.

Like Kelly, I had an early morning surgery and was given my normal meds (in normal pill form) before bed that same night. They were all aspirin-sized pills or smaller, and I just had to wait a minute or so between pills.

I never had to crush anything.  My surgeon did provide liquid pain meds post-op, though.

Lora