Re: When will the pain go away? (to Juli)

[Guest guest]

Thanks, Juli! I appreciate the reply. It's good to hear another's

experience. I know I must have read about all this before surgery

too, but since I wasn't going through it, retention was a whole

different story. Thanks for your notes on your daughter.

>

> When will the pain go

away?

>

>

> It's Day 5 post-op now and I have a few questions:

>

> 1) How long does the pain go on? It's definitely a bearable, kind

of

> low, dull pain and I have meds if it gets bad. Wondering when you

> were able to stop using the meds? Does the pain slowly drift off

or

> kind of curb off quickly? The pain is different for everyone.

Most on this site have said that they discontinued pain meds in the

first week. This was our case also. For our daughter, she just

noticed the pain wasn't there. From the hospital, we learned to ask

her continually to rate her pain on a 1-10 scale. One morning she

said said " 0 " and there was no more need for pain meds.

>

> 2) When does the tingling, nerve regeneration start? I've felt a

few

> kind of minimal bursts of tingling in the upper jaw region near

my

> nose, but it's not the type of tingling I expected after reading

a

> lot of posts about it. I expected it to be more like " electrical

> charges " , maybe like a foot waking up from sleep. But this

tingling

> is barely noticeable and not really obstructive to

focusing/talking,

> etc. Is this normal, or maybe I just haven't experienced the full

> effect yet? Some nerve regeneration starts immediately as nerves

find their home but normally cannot be felt because of the swelling

and numbness. Besides 'electrical shock' or 'foot waking up' another

term is 'an itch you can't stratch.' Most regeneration does not take

your focus away - you just know it is there and sometimes ongoing.

Our daughter often said, " the feathers are touching my face again " to

describe what she was feeling. She was often using her hand to wipe

across her nose and when asked about it she would say that 'it justs

itches but itching it doesn't help so I must be doing that

subconsciously. " She is at week 8 post op and still has the tingles

but has seem to have gotten used to them. When we ask, she

says, " Yes, they are there. I have just forgotten about them until

you asked. " So, we try not to ask too often.

>

> 3) Should I try to smile and use my cheek muscles at Day 5? I

feel

> that I can use my muscles more and more each day, but I'm not

sure if

> I should. Can this harm the stitches or do any other damage?

Unless there is a medical reason not to smile - smile alot.

Exercising those muscles is good physically (according to our OS) and

we know that smiling is good for your spirit. When you look in the

mirror just don't expect your smile to be there immediately. It

takes a while to actually get it back. But, smiling definitely helps

the attitude (psyche).

>

> Thanks for your replies! I appreciate your help.

>

>

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