Pain Control After Surgery

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am not sure where to post this. I was just wondering if anyone could tell me what their pain mdications were right after surgery. I am 5 days post-op from a first rib resection and scalenectomy. I had one of the best doctors, Dr. Erdogan Atasoy, for this procedure, but the post op pain control was ridiculous. I am a pharmacist, so I know medication and dosages. Right after surgery they put me on one percocet 5mg every 3hrs, when I still complained of pain, they added 75mg of demerol every 3 hrs IM (ouch, and even though I still had an IV in, they still opted for the IM route), and when that still wasn't controlling my pain, they added 2mg of IV Morphine every 3 hrs. None of this even touched on the pain, as I apparently had some complications during surgery (my rib was extra hard, the dr. said and it was difficult for him to get out, this is why I was having so much pain, he told me). After about 24hrs of this agonizing pain ( I was in a double room with an 80 year old elderly woman), I demanded that the fellow ( Dr. Atasoy's resident) do something about it or I was leaving the hospital and traveling home to go to a local hospital where I knew they had state of the art protocols and standard post operative procedures like PCA's. The doctor finally decided to increase the morphine to 4mg IV every 4 hours and 2 percocet 5mg every 4 hours, after my pulse rate went to 135 and my oxygen levels went down to 65%. This still did not control the pain, but I was discharged the next day with #50 Tylox (essentially the same as percocet 5 with a little extra tylenol) to take 1 capsule every 4 to 6 hours and to come back and see the Dr. in 2 weeks. When I discussed my concern of the lack of pain control with the current hospital medications and then the concern of being sent home with not enough medicine to control the pain for 2 weeks, let alone that the medicine was not even controlling the pain at a higher dosage, I was told to call the office if I ran out and they would call in lortab 7.5mg. Lortab 7.5mg did not even control my pre-operative pain, let alone this excruciating post-op pain. Anyways, this is my story and I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences or what their standard of care was after surgery. Dr. Atasoy is a great surgeon and is good at what he does, but he is over 80 and set in his ways about the pain control. Should I speak with someone at the hospital where he is affiliated?