Non-narcotic pain meds after surgery?

I'm going in for an ileocolectomy next week at Massachusetts General Hospital. Years ago I had a small bowel resection and remember having patient-controlled anaesthesia (PCA) with morphine for pain management.

I was advised that now they give you gabapentin and a "mix of non-narcotic" pain medications after surgery. This makes me a bit nervous that they aren't using narcotics and I wonder if this is really enough for pain management? Does anyone have experience with this?

I had oxycodone in my last PCA as I find that morphine makes me very sick; it is a narcotic though.

I always am given scopolamine patches for nausea and pain plus fetanyl patches and oxycodone. I have never heard of no narcotics for post operative pain. Gabapentin is a seizure med that some claim helps neuropathic pain but has zero effect on acute pain. Good luck!

I had dilaudid in my PCA when I had my resection 2 years ago. They send you home with a prescription for it also when you are released and the discharge instruction sheet recommends getting it filled. I had surgery on a Thursday and the PCA went away on Monday and I was switched to Tylenol (full daily dose). I think they leave an order open for dilaudid incase the pain gets too much for the tylenol.

Absentminded said:

I had oxycodone in my last PCA as I find that morphine makes me very sick; it is a narcotic though.

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I had the same thing for PCA

I had morphine for a day or two, then oxycodone.

I had a laparoscopic ileocecetomy earlier this month, and they actually gave me an epidural PCA while I was in the hospital - they transitioned me off of it and onto oral meds on the 4th day before releasing me on day 5. I think there was a combination of narcotics (maybe fentanyl?) and a local anesthetic. We had a few hiccups (too high a dose = numb legs = can't walk as directed by doctors) but it worked quite nicely for most of my stay. The pain was well-controlled once we had it figured out, and I felt ready to go home on Day 5.