Clarissa's Blog

One response to “Post-op Care”

1. 

   E (The Third Glance)

   June 23, 2018

   If it helps, I have to take the scary meds (percoset) for 1-4 days at a time approximately once every 4-6 weeks, otherwise my female parts make it so painful that I often end up in the ER. [I could talk about the journey to get to this point, but it’s long, complicated, and involves way more personal details than I feel like sharing. But trust me when I say this solution is the last resort. I and a substantial team of doctors have exhausted every single rational option as well as several other less rational ones.]

   I too have a very addiction-prone brain, and the meds scare me a lot. After nearly 3 years of this, I still hate the meds, I’m still scared of them, I still don’t like how they make me feel, and I’m still not even a little bit addicted. I’ve never contemplated taking one when I wasn’t on my period, and I have no problem stopping them basically the moment I feel my pain start to lessen (percoset usually takes me from a 9/10 on the pain scale to about a 6 – manageable but not pleasant). No one on my medical team is concerned about addiction, and we talk about the potential a lot, because I remain very concerned about it.

   So just saying: the meds can help, getting behind on pain is awful, and we do have tools to help with it, if we let them. Taken responsibly, opioid pain meds are a safe and effective way to manage pain in the short-term. From someone else who has an extremely addiction-prone brain, it is possible to use them appropriately and safely to manage pain when necessary. Now if only doctors would take the lead on helping patients recognize and practice responsible behavior surrounding these medications, it could save millions of lives.

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