Friday..
So I had went shopping Wednesday late afternoon. As I looked for food I could have, a woman there said I had the look of someone who had too many options. I jokingly corrected it’s the look of someone about to have their wisdom teeth removed. She recommended to ice the areas like crazy the first day to keep swelling down. As so I did on day 1 as much as possible when I wasn’t feeling very ill.
Now comes day 2. I had been forewarned by several sources that day 2 is sheer hell. The dental meds wear off and you have to take ibuprofen and the prescribed pain-killer. Although as I looked ahead to this day I thought pain was a better choice than nausea. That day 1 was more hellish with just how really ill I felt. At least with pain you can take medication to deal with it. With nausea you can’t get anything down.
I took a Lortab at 6pm on Thursday. Let me tell you this stuff is something else. It gives you very weird dreams. Now you may recall some dreams you’ve had that made you go, “What the heck was that about?” You thought how it didn’t make sense. Well it’s worse than that. Not only do they not make any sense, you dream stuff that just isn’t logical. And your mind seems to jump all over the place. I had the passing thought of that perhaps this is why some people feel compelled to get high or hammered to allow their muse to work. I wasn’t proud of the thought, but I had it. If this is what I needed to get my muse going, I could go without it. I can tell how out of it the medicine makes me, and thus I don’t like it.
By the instructions I got I’m supposed to take 3 ibuprofen first. If that didn’t work, then the Lortab. Unfortunately this didn’t help me keep track of when to take what. (I also had to take penicillin every 6 hours.) Times get out of kilter and get spread further apart for each medicine which makes it that much harder to remember. Then after the Lortab whacks me out of it, it’s hard to remember anything. As the day progressed it became more difficult to remember when I last took what. I was also more tired Friday than I was on the previous day. Exhaustion and mental confusion is not a good mix.
Now I had received the advice of staying ahead of the pain. Well this is hard when you have the problem I described above. Also the pain level goes from about a 2 out of 10, manageable, to quickly getting worse. I wasn’t in that area in between low and okay this hurts now for very long. Eventually I learned the pain was so bad that the ibuprofen alone couldn’t handle it, so I had to take the Lortab at the same time. But that lesson didn’t come until I was completely confused over when to take what and had to “reset” myself to a time when I could take all of the medicine together. And I got into quite a bit of pain waiting for that reset time to arrive.
I actually did get myself out and about a bit this day during the afternoon. Storms were planned to come through during the evening so I wasn’t looking forward to waking up in the middle of the night to either the weather radio or thunder. Out of all my days since the surgery so far, this one at least gave me enough energy to leave the house. (I’ve pretty much been bedridden after it though.) I couldn’t really have anything to eat out, but at least the outside air and warmth helped cheer up my spirits.
So from my experience I can say, try to stay ahead of the pain. It won’t be as easy as people say or suggest. Try to set alarms or reminders when to take your meds next. Oh and taking it on any kind of food helps your stomach. But don’t be too hard on yourself if you miss your time to take your pain medication.
So day 3 consisted of some time out, figuring out what to take when, and taking naps. With the exception of the pain I experienced waiting for time to “reset”, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Oh, and yes there was more icing of the areas.