Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Medication - Or Lack There Of

I'm not a big fan of pain medication. I've always stopped taking pain medication as soon as possible. It inhibits thinking and alters moods. I've felt that the pain medication has slowed recovery from injury since I can't always differentiate the effects of the pain medication from the injury itself. The sooner I stopped taking the pain medicine, the faster I would recover - WRONG!!!

This recovery was no different. A week after surgery, I stopped taking Vicodin and thought that the Tylenol would be sufficient. I was wrong. When updating THE surgeon during the visit today, I described my pain as very significant. He asked what I was taking, and I said just Tylenol. He very kindly pointed out that perhaps I should reconsider my pain killer of choice to something a bit more powerful. He also pointed out that the greater the pain, the harder it would be for me to rest and recover. (As my kids would say - DUH!!!)

I'm now taking Tylenol with codeine and it seems to provide more relief than straight Tylenol. My plan at night is to take the Vicodin in hopes it will contribute to restful sleep. We'll see.

The decision to continue the stronger pain medication should have been obvious, and looking back, I made the wrong decision to stop. But, we are who we are. I expected the recovery to be difficult. On a scale of 1 to 10, I expected a 9. 9 turned out to be about right. I've had other rough recoveries in the past - operations, broken bones, bike crashes, etc. Perhaps those recoveries would have progressed faster by taking advantage of modern medicine.

Note and acknowledgement to female readers: I've never given birth - so any pain I've experienced is relatively minor to compared to "real" pain resulting from having enjoyed that first apple.