Questions about post-op pain management

October 14, 2001

I had my surgery about 3 months ago and I still have questions about my pain

management immediately post-op. I had an epidural placed just prior to

surgery and it went very smooth. After surgery they supplemented my pain

management with morphine. The whole time I was in the hospital I couldn't

keep my eyes open for more than 45 seconds. I wouldn't fall asleep, I just

couldn't keep my eyes open. I kept asking the staff about this, but no one

knew exactly why I felt so out of it. They tried turning down the meds in

the epidural, but that didn't make a difference. They also tried stopping

the morphine, but that didn't change things either. When they took out the

epidural, I didn't notice any difference in the level of pain I felt. Is

that normal or was the epidural just not effective? It took about 2 days at

home until I was able to keep my eyes open for more than a minute. I wasn't

able to focus my eyes on anything until after I was home for about 3 days.

It took about a week until I could watch TV. The pain wasn't too bad, I just

felt so drugged. Could the anesthetic have caused that? I was in surgery

for over 4 hours.

I really want to find out what caused this as I would like to have a tummy

tuck in the future and I want to prepare in case that happens again.

Kathy M.

DS 7/19/01

213 pre-op

157 today

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