Alternate pain killers for people who are allergic to opiates

i need to have to have a knee replacement but the surgeon will not operate because i am allergic to opiates. Is there a pain reliever that is as effective but does not contain opiates?

[femmy29]

Not that I am aware of, especially for surgical pain.  If there really were a medicine that was as effective as opiates for pain, opiates would be rarely used within the medical community due to the stigma attached to them.  

You could try a google search on, "surgery without opiates or opioids" or "surgery on those with an allergy to opioids" to see if anything interesting pops up.  There have had to have been folks out there that needed emergency surgery with an allergy to opioids and the doctors had to have had a workaround...I would think.  But I doubt it was as effective as opiates for pain.  They could have been kept in a medically induced coma until some of the healing from the surgery transpired.  But honestly, I don't know for certain.  Other responses may be more helpful and I think you may find more information regarding this subject through a few internet searches.

Curious, what types of symptoms do you get from opiates? Have you tried them all with the same result?  Let us know how your internet search turns out.

femmy

[Weathergirl21]

Have you actually tried every single type of pain medication?
Morphine, Codeine, Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Fentanyl, Hydromorphone, Buprenorphine, Tapentadol?

And you had actual emergent allergic reactions that were life threatening to every single one of these?

Many people mistakenly think that itching and even a slight rash means they are allergic when a lot of those are just side effects to many of the opiates that go away within a few weeks/month...

It would be extremely rare for someone to actually be non tolerant to every single type of medication...

I would seek out the advice of a Pain Mgmt. Dr. to work with your Surgeon to see what ideas they can come up with.

[marycarmel]

I certainly wouldn't want to have a surgery without having pain management options after.  But my friend's dad had bad side effects to all narcotics.  Not allergic but he just hated the side effects.  He had open heart surgery where they actually opened his chest to fix one of the valves.  He only had Extra Strength Tylenol.  I was pretty stunned.  But truthfully, when we went to see him, he didn't look even uncomfortable.