What does it feel like awaking out of surgery? resurfacing

[ZAP]

So my surgeon told me its not so bad and I will do find, she said not to worry about the 90 degree rule. I went to the first orientation at the hospital and they scared the hell out me saying the exact opposite.  They said, to bring different shoes because my foot is going to be to swollen to fit, they said i might have trouble going to the bathroom because of the swelling, they said i will have to learn how to inject my self in the stomach for 2 weeks to prevent blood clotting, etc.  Lets just say they painted a very miserable experience. 

Can you please tell me what it felt like when you woke up out of surgery?  Did you almost scream, start to cry, where you complete numb from the meds, could you move your leg, was your entire leg and foot swollen, etc? Give the best most detail description possible.  I've never had surgery before or stayed 4 - 5 days in the hospital.   If you can also be nice to add anything i should make sure I bring to the hospital which you might of missed.  My surgery is in march, so any info will help.

thanks

[Woodstock Hippy]

Take it easy Zap.  Your surgeon gave you the rosey extreme and the hospital gave you the other.  You'll be somewhere in between.  When you wake up, you'll be medicated and shouldn't feel any pain.  For the first day I had the push button for pain medication and the doctor told me to use it as much as I could.  After that it was just oral pain medication but I'd say my pain level was never very bad, more discomfort and stiffness.

At orientation we were told about the blood thinner injections and half of the people almost walked out right there. The other half almost started crying.  I'll tell you, it was the easiest thing I did in this whole process.  The needle is so thin that I didn't even feel it and the plunger works easily.  You don't have to worry about it at all.

One thing to know is that after the surgery the pain in your hip will be gone and you can start the job of getting back to what you like to do.

Good luck and bring something to post from the hospital, we love to hear from you.

[hernanu]

Woodstock is right, Zap.

I didn't do the 90 degrees thing, but like all of us, dealt with challenges. Nothing you can't do and the pain, compared to the OA pain, was very manageable. The medication, both at the hospital and prescribed at home, is there to be used, and helps a lot.

Every person is different, but my swelling didn't get to my feet until about a week later, and even then there were no problems with shoes. I also didn't do the injections, did aspirin, so can't talk to that.

The thing that really excited me was NO OA PAIN. It was such a relief, I was really optimistic even though I had the normal post surgery limitations and soreness. It was a different kind of soreness, to me it was like when you've driven muscles to collapse.

Everyone is different, and you'll have your own path, but it should be similar to what we've all had.

[Aerial]

Yes, please do not worry.  My operated leg was still slightly numb when I got up to walk for the first time a couple hours after surgery.  I had a catheter until the next morning.  When it was removed I was able to use the bathroom on my own.  I did have swelling in my foot that traveled down from my hip/leg but that didn't happen until 3 or 4 days after surgery.  It wasn't bad, I just couldn't tie my shoe as tightly.  As far as pain, I never had pain after surgery but I did have a problem with nausea.  I eventually got a prescription for an anti-nausea medication and that took care of it.  Overall, I thought the experience would be much worse.  You'll be OK and stunned at the lack of OA pain which is immediately noticeable.

[Jimt]

I can say I woke up in zero pain.  I was off all pain meds in 3 days.  The only pain I ever had was at incision site.  It would let you know it was there on certain movements.

I was worried too.  But it was nothing.  I have zero pain in hip from time I woke up.  I am almost 3 months and am SO happy.   I sleep, walk, golf, Tae Kwon do (yep, nice and easy) without any pain.  Same as when I awoke from surgery!

Good luck.

[Luanna]

Hi Zap,
I felt great waking up after surgery. No pain. I was still numb from the spinal or epidural. It lasted until the next day. They keep you comfortable in the hospital. I also used aspirin like Hern for blood clotting so can't provide any info on the injectible blood clotting meds.

My biggest discomfort in the early stage was nausea. I had a bad reaction to the pain meds and iron that they pumped into my IV. But nausea is not uncommon. They have great meds to help with that also. I think the nausea was the worst part of the entire hospital stay for me. I also had a temperature on days 2 and 3 and that is also common.

I could not take the heavy duty pain pills (oxycontin and oxycodone) after leaving the hospital. I did well on Tylenol and another pain med that my pain management doc prescribed. No side effects. You can expect general soreness and discomfort as your muscles, tendons, and nerves get themselves all reorganized after the surgery.

Luanna

[obxpelican]

This all depends what your doctors pain protocol is.  I had bone surgery back in the 80s, I had an old time doctor who did not know what a pain protocol is.  I was in the worst pain I've ever had in my life post op for over a day. 

Today most surgeons know how to control pain, I was never in more pain post-op than I was pre-op.  Pre-op I could hardly find a happy position to sleep in, post-op I slept like a log once I could roll on my side (I am a side sleeper).

For the first 36 hours post-op I had no pain, I walked the afternoon of my surgery on crutches putting weight on my operated hip.

I will say I've seen read where some Dr. Gross patients had some pain, but not that screaming agony pain like my surgery in the 80s.

I elected for a nerve block, it was like waking up from a great nap for me, when I awoke I asked 1) When were they starting the surgery?  And 2) Did I get a HR.

We're all different, we all deal with pain differently, we all recover differently, that's probably the hardest thing we all must keep in mind.


Chuck

[hipnhop]

Man, 8 days ago I woke up looking for some Honey Nut Cheerios. I got mad at the nurse for not having any.  I felt nothing. I was groovin. There really is little pain except once you move. Put it like this - my heel hurt more than my hip. Being on my back so long irritated the bottom of my heel.

You don't feel the catheter, even when the pull it out. It felt like getting a needle.

Don't worry about the shots. They are not a biggie. I take them everyday for 14 days. Some docs don't use them, mine does. I take Lovenox. The needle is small and I just stick it into my gut and it's a wrap. I worry morer about remembering to shot myself.

Movement is what going to hurt. Trying to position leg so you can get out of bed, get comfortable, let the PT show you how to do these things. I think they should show us before we go to the hospital. It was real difficult for me to get comfortable.

Make sure you have the:
_shoe horn thingy
-put sock on thingy
-Cane/Crtuches
-Reacher thingy
-raised toilet seat
-put snacks in your overnight bag.
-lip balm
-slipper with a back rim
-Ipod

and get ready for some quick healing. You'll be a little behind me. Wanna race?

[David]

I woke up singing Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night TGIF"...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlyXNRrsk4A
Guess I was feeling pretty good, had my wife and the staff laughing a bit...
Worse thing was the epidural not wearing off for 7 hours...
I did the aspirin as well for clot prevention...
The catheter yank out was not high on the list, is it as irritating for women?
Happy and on my way is my lasting memory.
David

[Dan L]

For me, was a very easy surgery.  I was out, or just do not remember, from the time I was in the surgical prep room until up on the Ortho floor.  They took the catheter out before then.  I had some pain in the joint for 12-24 hours afterwards that was medicated well through out and went away.  Not numb per se.

Pain when moving and getting up, but nothing terrible.  Tell them when you have pain, and they should keep you comfortable.  I wore my normal tennis shoes when leaving, maybe that side was not tied up is all.  I was in for 2 nights only.

It is a scary thing if you are not familiar; read many of the posts here from fellow Hippys and that should help reduce your fears.  It was such a breeze, I signed up to have the onter one done asap (next week).

Thx

Dan

[imgetinold]

Zap,

Ditto what everyone has said.  You'll read a lot to "stay ahead of the pain".  I didn't know what that meant...but found out.

I woke in no pain at all, but couldn't move my feet for about an hour until the epidural wore off.  (FYI Dr. Gross hippies are not under general anesthetic, but have an epidural and are sleeping).  Some surgeons don't do the epidural.

I didn't have any real pain to speak of until I got home.  I left the next day at noon, and was good and drugged up upon leaving the hospital.  I did not, however, pay attention to what time my last 4-hour pain pill was given to me, so I learned later that - for the first few days - you want to take the pain meds ON SCHEDULE.  Once I learned that, I never had any more pain.  I weaned off narcotics by day 6, at which point I only took Tylenol extra strength.  I stopped that at day 10.  No problem.

Good luck.  It's way easier than our anxiety wants us to believe.

[ZAP]

This is great info.  I think everybody preparing for surgery needs to read these responses.  You guys make it sound like a breeze.

[obxpelican]

It is a fairly easy thing on patients, normaly.

It's your doctor that it's hard on 


Chuck

[imgetinold]

Zap,

Do you know what surgical approach your surgeon uses?  The 90 degree rule is typically for a posterior approach.  If your surgeon uses an anterior approach, then there is typically no 90 degree rule needed (from what I've read here in this site).  http://www.surfacehippy.info/surgicalapproaches.php.

[PistolPete]

When I woke from surgery I was very tired and it took at least an hour or two before I felt like I could keep my eyes open.  The first thing I did was wiggle my toes and feet because I was afraid of nerve damage but didn't have any issues.  They kept me comfortable regarding any pain and I really didn't have any at all.  It was very hard moving my leg even an inch and my leg was really sore.  I did have swelling but as others have said it got worse over the next week.  Not a big deal so long as you keep icing etc and the swelling and brusing will go away.  I didn't have to take any injections for a blood thinner as I was only on asprin.  That being said I'm sure that's not a big deal at all.  The first time you will be nervous but after that will be a piece of cake.

I only take the narcotics for the day of and after my surgery.  I stopped taking all pain meds on day 3 and the hospital was mad at me stating I would be in a ton of pain but honestly I was fine.  I took the Tylenol for a few days but that's it.  Getting around was difficult and you will most likely need a raised toilet seat and a grabber and sock putter-on tool.  Other than that it's not too big of a deal.  You will prob. have mixed emotions between joy that the surgery is over and depression because you just had major surgery but you'll know that you're on the beter side of thins now.

[ScubaDuck]

This was the best experience I have had with surgery.  I got an epidural instead of the general anasthesia.  After prior surgeries with a general it really sucked waking up.  It took forever and felt horrible.  This time I went to sleep just as we exited the pre-op area before getting to the operating room and I woke up on the way to my room.

There was no pain in the leg.  It was very difficult to move the operated leg at first.  I was able to discontinue the oxycodone the second day and the oxycontin on day four.

Things I would remember for the hospital.  Loose fitting clothes, preferably something you can wear without underwear.  Shoes or slippers that are comfortable to slip on.  Socks to keep your feet warm if they don't provide you with socks with the cool grip strips on the bottom.  I didn't really have time to read much because I was discharged above 30 hours after surgery.  I mostly was fading in and out of sleep.

Best wishes.

Dan

[Tin Soldier]

I had really no pain at all from the moment I awoke to th efirst PT session.  Pain was pretty bad when trying to move around, but you get pretty used to having the help and then you figure out how to move better by yourself and so on. 

As Dan says, loose clothes.  You probably won't see much swelling below the hip area until a couple days pass. 

I had aspirin for blood thinning.  That was it.

Do try to get that catheter as soon as you can, just get it over with.  The yank is a very bizarre feeling, unlike HnH, it hurt, but it was quick, thus the yank.  When the nurse counts to 3, start relaxing at 0, they might try to pull a fast one on you and yank at 2.  Just kiddin, they wouldn't do that.   

You'll be fine.

[einreb]

I think it depends a lot on the anesthesia.  General seems to be a little yucky waking up. 

I had a spinal and felt oddly alert and good when I woke up.

[hernanu]

I had a general and had no problem. I was drugged up pretty well, my waking up was pretty pleasant.

[obxpelican]

The problem with general, not everyone does really well on it.  Some never come out of it in rare cases, although it does happen.

I've had both, and if I could I would go spinal for any and all surgeries, of course it cannot be done for everything.


Chuck