question on stents and pain meds

September 6, 2002

Hello all,

I have a question for those of you that have had stents. I just had one put in

the bile duct on Wednesday, Sep 28th. The GI said it was temporary and would

last for a month or two. My question is - does the stent come out on its own?

If so, where does it go? If it doesn't come out on its own, does the doc have

to do another ERCP to get it out? Why is it that the stent is only temporary?

I was doing better Monday and Tuesday, but begin getting worse again on

Wednesday. I stayed home yesterday and felt better by the late afternoon. I

thought I'd surely be able to make it to work today. However, I woke up at 2:30

a.m. with bad pain - not horrendous, but still bad. This is the second night in

a row that I've gone to bed feeling a little better only to be woken up with

pain. I have had two hydrocodones and one mepergan (demerol/phenergan) since

2:30 a.m. The pain will ease for a bit but then comes right back long before

the pain med should have worn off.

At first I was worse after the ERCP and stent but then got better, so I thought

they had fixed my problem - at least temporarily. However, it now seems I right

back to about the same as before the ERCP. I was given a hefty supply of pain

meds, so for the most part I am usually able to get comfortable (although not

this morning). I'm worried that if this pain continues beyond a couple more

days, I'll be out of pain med. I'm also worried that I may have become addicted

to the pain med since I've had only a few days that I've gone the whole day

without pain med since mid july when this all started again. Does anyone know

how long it takes to become addicted to pain meds? Is there anything I can do

to minimize my risk of becoming addicted?

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