Pain Meds

Pain management... This is tricky and every person is different. I am very lucky to have a high pain tolerance (and extremely grateful). The recovery from this surgery has been more painful than any of my four C-Sections, uterine ablation, and both knee surgeries. That said, it's also been one of the easiest recoveries. Having only the chest muscles affected doesn't affect mobility nearly as much as abdominal muscles or knees did. So being able to get up and move is great! The pressure on my chest had been the biggest challenge. At first it was hard to take deep, or even normal, breaths and was difficult to hold a conversation. Percocet helped with that. The couple times that I accidentally let it wear off I feel sharp, stabbing, shooting sparks of pain across my chest, my hands would get shaky, and my body felt tense and jittery. As soon as the next dose took affect that all went away. At my peak I was taking 2 pills every 6 hours and weaned down to 1 every 6-7 hours around day 9. The thing is that it didn't help the pressure, so I was still very uncomfortable, and I really just wanted to be able to eat normal food and have a normal poop. (This is where I back track and talk about poop) Around day 5, Dr Kommareddi, the breast surgeon, gave me step by step instructions to follow over the next couple days to produce a bowel movement - starting with Milk of Magnesia that evening. At that point I wasn't feeling well, is nauseous, I had lots of gas, and my abdomen was very uncomfortable. The second dose the following morning didn't stay down long, and neither did my breakfast. We were clearly going about this from the wrong side. Not a pretty realization. So I set to getting things moving on my own - abdominal massage, bending and stretching, and sheer willpower (it helped that I got a Squatty Potty for my birthday!). Thank you to those who brought me beans, kale smoothies, essential oils, etc. Each day after that I had a movement, but I had to work for it. Not awesome. Ok, where was I? So I was still in pain from the pressure of the tissue expanders that were inserted between my ribs and pectoralis muscle, and I was constipated. So on day 11 I decided to let the pain medicine wear off to see what the pain was like. My chest muscles were jittery, then my hands started to get shaky, then my knees and elbows started to get tingly/jittery (like if I have too much caffeine and can't sit still - this is why I don't drink Coca-Cola), it was hard for me to concentrate on the conversation and I realized that this wasn't my body's reaction to pain - this was my body going through withdrawal from the Percocet it was now addicted to! Shit! I got up and washed my face, not knowing what to do. A friend had brought over some CBD Hemp Oil (completely legal, don't need a medical marijuana card for this), so I put some under my tongue (it was an odd combination of delicious and disgusting) hoping for the best. I went and sat back down and shortly realized that the jitters had stopped and my hands were steady. I wasn't like gooey relaxed or anything - I just felt normal. And it was great. Then I had an intense headache for about 24 hours. But now it's better and I can deal with the pain and pressure at this point. When I do something that causes pain, I stop. That's the point, right? Pain pill addiction is very serious. It's scary how easily your body gets addicted - this is from a week and a half of a moderate to low dose.