NeuroTalk Support Groups - Surgery update

Just an update since I posted earlier asking for advice about having surgery while dealing with PCS. I don't know if this will be useful to anyone else, but I know that finding "success stories" prior to my surgery would have made me feel a little bit better about the whole thing.

I was really concerned about the effects of anesthesia. For that and other reasons (including a bit of denial), I put off the surgery to repair the shoulder that I injured in my accident. Then I had to have sinus/oral surgery - no choice, so I did it in June, 1 year post-accident. I was super-dizzy right after, and then my headaches were worse for a while, but I took into consideration that they did a lot of work on my jaw/sinus area, which could have been a contributing factor. The headaches returned to "PCS-normal" within a few months.

So on Dec 16, I went ahead and had my shoulder repaired. I had oxycontin and celebrex prior to going to the OR, general anesthesia, plus local injections of morphine, exparel, and toradol. I was dizzy and nauseous when I was waking up (pretty normal). I took Hydrocodone on schedule (and always with food) as ordered by my Dr for the first 2 days, then tried the non-narcotic Tramadol (also with food) which made me feel awful (nauseous, no appetite, slept ~15 of the next 18 hours), then got by with 1/2 hydrocodone at night for a few nights. By day 8, I was off everything but did take some prescription ibuprofen last night because I overdid it yesterday and was hurting.

Overall I'm really pleased that my PCS symptoms haven't been any worse than they were before. One thing that is also helping is that I'm taking advantage of the maximum time recommended off work (4 weeks), so I'm getting extra rest. Before, I would have felt like a lazy slacker and been worried about what my boss would think. I'm doing a lot of work from home, but I can pace myself. That's probably been one of the biggest lessons on my PCS journey - be nice to yourself, don't ignore symptoms, and you can't force the recovery process.