When prescribing medication for post-op pain, what is the best choice? Med students, please look...?

Question

I'm a nursing student, so don't worry docs, I'll never be prescribing meds anyways. I was thinking Percocet, but then I read about its dependency issues and now I'm wondering if anything is now being reccommended instead? The pain is due to a medical incision.

Answer 1

Narcs are fine for post-op pain. Depending how major the surgery is, anything from darvocet to fentanyl. For people who don't want narcs (like former addicts or alcoholics who are scared of most drugs), toradol. If it's really minor pain, tylenol or motrin.

Dependency isn't an issue with short-term use, unless the person is already into extra-curricular drug use. In that case, they'll need higher doses of narcs than a "normal" person.

Answer 2

Narcotics are the mainstay for post-operative pain, and it takes a long time for dependency issues to develop, so there's no real worry, though some narcotic addicts prefer to avoid the risk of relapse. The ""caine"-type anesthetics and NSAIDS are useful but the standard against which all else is compared is morphine, and for good reason.

Answer 3

For bone pain a combination of NSAIDS (torodol, ibuprofen or like) with narcotic work. For other it is individual _ not withstanding their preoperative narcotic requirements)
AS WITH many PACU RN's (U.S.A) don't confuse lack of efficacy with just "filling up the bucket".

Answer 4

Narcotics, like Hydrocodone, for short term use.