For one thing the less narcotic pain medicine your on after surgery, the less they will need to control your post surgery pain. I do agree your being under treated for pain management.
If you still have horrid untreated pain after surgery, find a different doctor who will help you. I was getting 4 Percocet(5/325mg) a day. The surgery/fusion did not help my pain, but he wouldn't raise my dose. Instead I was getting injection after injection. It was awful. It took me a while to find a doctor who would help my pain. Even though I am on schedule II meds, I still have quite a bit of pain. Unfortunately the long acting medicine gave me gi issues after being on them so long. I injured the same discs your having surgery on, due to my age, they only fixed the worse one that was on my spinal cord.
Not all pain management doctors will treat with medication therapy. I found mostly will treat with injections in my experience. Good luck with the surgery. I hope you have a fast recovery! Hopefully you won't need to see a pm doc after surgery.
I have level 9 pain (1 to 10) for cervical disc damage. The MRI show severe nerve/spinal compression. Dr has scheduled a 3 level fusion (3&4, 4&5, and 6&7) in two weeks. I have been taking Oxycodone-Acetaminophen 5-325. It does not remove the pain.
When I had my knee replaced last year, the Dr. prescribed Morphine I think. I think it worked a little better than the Oxycodone.
Is there a better drug?
Hi Auntmartha,
Welcome to the Pain Management Forum of MedHelp. I apologize but I am not sure exactly what you are asking.
Tiger did a good job of explaining the different opiates and their schedule. But I think I read it is why should you not use a strong scheduled narcotic. Again I apologize but if you would like to expand on your question I would be more than happy to attempt to answer it.
Take care, Tuck
Schedule II Opiates are : Percocet, Morphine, Oxycontin, Fentanyl and others. They can only be prescribed by a written script (no phone ins, no faxes) and they MUST be PRINTED. There is NO refills given on a Schedule II drug. It requires a visit to the Dr. monthly.
Schedule III Opiates are: Vicodin, Vicoprofen, Tussionex, etc... and thay may be called in or faxed in to a Pharmacy and can have up to 6 refills.