Chronic pain/ stop meds before surgery?

I am having surgery in 18 days (YAYYYY!!!!). I have chronic back pain and am on percocet, a pretty strong dose. It has been suggested and I agree that I cut back so I don't have too much of a tolerance come surgery time. I want the pain meds they give me to work. Does that make sense?

Well, I decided yesterday to just stop taking the pain meds. I only took them when I needed them, though lately, it's been pretty regular. So I get into almost 24 hours since I had a pain med and I'm just about climbing the walls and crying from the pain. I gave in and took some and decided to ask my surgeon what to do at my pre-op appt on Tuesday.

Fellow chronic pain sufferers, how did you deal with this? There is a reason I have pain meds and after today, I know I'm not going to be able to deal without some sort of relief for the next 18 days.

Advice, suggestions, experience? All are welcome.

I guess I don't understand why you feel the need to stop taking your pain medicine? Does the doctor want you to stop? Just because you are having surgery doesn't mean your underlying back pain is going to go away. You will need your baseline pain meds for back  pain and additional for the surgery pain
You need to develop a pain medicine plan with your doctor. It's important.
Deb T.

I have Ra and i feel ur pain i live with pain everyday and im prepairing for my surgery and the doctor told me i had to stop my ra meds before surgery like 8 weeks before ..So thats where im at right now ..he told me no nsaids either so my hands and both feet are in sever pain i called the office and they try to stick it out cause if they give me pain meds for my pain it can have a effect of bleed during surgery and the pain meds they give me for surgery wont work...so its a catch 22 ...But i have to say try other things like heating pad...those heat therma patches ...those wont be bad thats what they told me...and actually its working not as bad but it is still there... Cheer up the rainbow is not that far away...think possitive and it will pass...:)

pam

I hurt my back 2 weeks before surgery I told the dr NO NSAIDS , he gave me vicodin and I took that till the morning before the day of surgery. The morphine took care of my back pain at the hospital and the roxicette when I got home
   I don't see why you couldn't keep taking your percs

Stopping your pain meds for that amount of time will not help you post-op. I know. Not from WLS surgery(those didn't work either, horrible pain), but from other issues I have. If you have already developed a tolerance for them you are not magically not have a tolerance in a couple of weeks.

This needs to be further discussed with your surgeon and Anesthigialogist(sp).  The meds the gave before surgery, taht were supposed to "relax" me, no go. I had to ask the surgeon if I should be feeling anything and so he gave me some more and they started prepping me totally non-sedated while I was on the cold steel table. All I remember after that one didn't work either was the Dr saying, how about a little of this? After that I woke up in agony, my mother thoughtm oh god what has she done to herself! My mother again explained mt tolerance and the off label use of a certain opiod, and he had to give me what they put me out with for pain, much to the surgeons surprise.

Please, for your own comfort and sanity, have an in depth discussion with your team, if you have one, my team was unfortunately in Mexico, and their idea of pain meds are different than ours any way. Good luck, and hope you have an uneventful recovery!

Mine is from arthritus.  I had to stop my NSAIDs 10 days before surgery because of the bleeding issue but could continue to take the hydrocodine until the night before surgery.  I had morphine after surgery and that worked great.  At home, I don't remember what they gave me but it worked.

Don't want to scare you but your back pain isn't going to be gone when you have surgery.  You likely will still need something to control the pain.  I have been seeing a chiro weekly almost since the beginning of this journey because as I have lost weight, my spine is reshaping itself and I get awful pain.  Well, that and I fell off my pony.

Talk to your surgeon and you PCP or whoever prescribes the pain meds.  Figure out now what you will do once surgery is over and you are in the losing phase where your body is changing pretty rapidly.  Maybe it is just me and has to do with the lenght of time I was overweight or my back that made mine an issue.  But I seriously thought a lot of my pain would be gone and some is but some back issues were new.

First quitting your meds now will do nothing to help with tolerance but hurt you. It will also do you some harm, because suddenly stopping something your body depends on for relief, will make you sick. It has to be weaned. Trust me, been there done that. For the sake of my babies.

The other thing, I take (bad drug) oxycodone, which is the narcotic in the perocet, but at a larger dose. I can't have tylenol, and now that I've had ny RNY I can't take nsaids. I'm allergic to tylenol. BAd allergic. ANyway, They had no problem controlling my pain post op. I was on dilaudid, then fentanyl for pain. And came home on the same dose of oxy's I went in on. The pain wasn't as bad as my back.

The other thing I wanted to point out... Meds do not last as long as the dr thinks they will orally, post op. You need to sit down and discuss this with your prescribing dr. My oxy's used to last 4 to 5 hours, and now it's lucky if I get two full hours out of it. But it also hits hard when I take them. Instead of a gradual start up. Literally between 20 and 30 minutes after taking them, I'm at peak and going down hill by 40 minutes.

Just wanted to give you that warning. My prescriber finally accepted that, and increased my daily allowances.

Teri

Thank you all so much. I feel much better about it.

I talked to my pcp today and she said to talk to the surgeon, but she doesn't mind continuing to prescribe my pain meds. Since it's not an NSAID, it's ok to keep taking.

It's such a relief! I didn't think I'd make it and not want to die.

I will talk with the surgeon and get a pain plan together.

Thanks again folks. I'm much relieved!!

Don;t stop your percocet preop, it is only going to make you miserable and won't help you at all post op.  Prior to my gastric bypass, I was on the duragesic patch *(fentynal) and percocet as needed - basically 2-3 times per day - in the morning, at night and once during the day.

I made sure I let the surgeon and anestesiologist that I was on these meds so they could give me the necessary pain meds post op.  Being you are on narcoctics all the time preop, you will need a higher dose post op.  You will be given the pump when you wake up and for a day or 2 depending on how long you are in the hospital.  Some people get morphine and some get dilaudid. My surgeon uses dilaudid and I find the dilaudid works better.  For a surgery I had postop, they first gave me morphine and I ended up asking to be switched to dilaudid.

Then post op, I was given liquid morphine for the first 2 weeks and then when you are able you can go back onto liquid percocet until you can swallow pills. You may be able to use the liquid percocet right out of the hospital.  Everyone is different.  I got the liquid morphine from my pain management doctor, surgeons won't give that to you.

good luck

Thanks so much for the info! I will write that down and ask my surgeon and pcp about it. Dilaudid has always worked better for me then morphine.