I know I know, I was excited and a bit hopped up on pain meds when I was released form the hospital.I was under the mistaken impression that since they treated my severe pain at the hospital when the nerve block failed that they would not leave me at home in agonizing pain. I was wrong.
When I woke from surgery it was obvious to me the nerve block didn't take .I expressed concern about this seeing that when I get dental work I need 3x as much numbing agent. These "caine" drugs do not do much for me in regular people dosage. This numbing agent is different than the dentist but kinda the same. Anyway I woke up in severe pain.
The first thing the nurse asked was for me to wiggle my toes. I guess I shouldn't have been able to do this if the block worked.The nurse was kind and brought me two doses of IV pain meds (over an hour) and another oral dose. That was barely enough to get my pain under control. I do not have an opioid tolerance -just severe pain.
I was told that I need to double the amount of pain pills I was given to use at home because the block did not work. I was also told by multiple people to take the meds every 4-5 hours and wake myself up to take them so the pain doesn't get too bad.
Keep in mind I am just waking up from surgery so I am not asking the right questions.
Had I been in my right mind I would have asked about the quantity of pain meds I was prescribed. I was only given a day an half worth of light pain meds -even if doubled. My husband gets more pain meds when he pulls a muscle. I mean this literally.
Come early Friday morning I am in agony. Also my insurance is rejecting the rx for blood thinners so I spent what little energy I had fighting with them. They ended up rejecting every one my dr prescribed so we had to pay out of pocket. I am high risk for clots. I also can't take baby aspirin because I am deathly allergic.
If it weren't for that would have paid attention to the fact that if I am taking the meds as prescribed I will be out of meds very soon. My pain also spiked and my wound is now very hot and itchy.
I know what infected wounds feel like as I get them all the time. I also have a fever.
Side note FFS doctors-people's body temp differs. First year med students learn this.Never once had a doctor considered my low body temp as a baseline If I am 98.6 I have an almost 2 degree fever. Putting the cutoff at 101 is stupid.In fact they use this as a way to minimize my fever "well it's not that high" when my temp is 3-4 degrees above my baseline. This irritates me so much. This has put me in life threatening situations before as doctors do not take my infections seriously because they keep comparing me to a healthy person.
This is exactly what the on call doc said . He said my fever wasn't high enough to go to the er and I need to wait it out until I can speak with primary care on Monday.
He also agreed that I was under prescribed pain meds and did call in a little over a day's worth. It is still the minimum strength but it's something.It brings my pain down from a 9 to an 8 so that's...something.
If the surgeon had listened to me and given me the anti biotics the day before this infection likely could have been avoided. He took a little convincing to rx me post op anti biotics even though I always and I mean literally always get a post op infection whenever they cut me. It's been this way for decades.
It is part of my neuro immune disease that doctors still don't believe in , like they think it's Bigfoot. It has been know that those with my conditions are immune compromised -quite severely. Doctors believe diabetics and those with HIV that they have compromised immune systems but ME patients do not get that same courtesy. I mean the studies confirming these things have only been around since the 1970's /80's and later. My 35+ years of patient history also is never taken into consideration. I'm just a hysterical woman, what do I know? /s
I also likely have covid because the hospital did not honor my request to be treated as a high infection risk patient. I have severe asthma. I also have thrush. This is gonna be fun.
