Thread: Home Morphine Drip?

So I was talking to my Ortho people earlier today about my ACL surgery coming up on the 6th. She was saying they would probably send me home with a newfangledthingy that was basically a little pack that I could use to shoot morphine right into my knee so I could pretty much just give myself a local instead of taking vic/perc/etc pill based drugs. Anybody ever use one of these or know about them?

Edit: I think its this thing: http://www.iflo.com/prod_onq_classic.php

paging Huckwheat . . .

Hey Lego-

I haven't had the On-Q myself, but saw quite a bit of it at my old job. The patients I took care of were really fucked up - trauma patients with lots of injuries. Basically that equates to having a LOT of pain, so I think it's promising to hear that it worked well for them (as a local anesthetic). I guess if it works well for someone with chronic pain, it would work well for someone who's having their knee done.

-LAN

Hey Lego, morophine - - are you sure? That's a narcotic and sort of goes against the whole "localizing" the anesthetic thing, doesn't it? I think a morophine drip is for terminally ill patients.

Regardless, good luck.

get the drip and tell them you'll need some backup vikes.

Morophine was my best friend for 24 hours once. Till it shut down my bladder. Theres somthing that brings a smile to your face when you press a button and then your whole body gets warm and you can no longer hold your head up.... mmmmm morphine [/end drug trip]

I was one of those heavy trauma patients LAN spoke of and I had the drip for about 10 days. The first 7-8 were bliss. Then the last two got wierder and wierder until I kept waking up in total confusion- taking sometimes up to an hour (in the middle of the night when there weren't other people around) to figure out where I was and what I was doing there. That's when I switched to oxy and fentinal (sp?). The drip seems a bit excessive for just a knee. Then again- I ain't no doctah.

Heal fast.
Don't get too hung up on the drip if you do get it- scary Ralph Steadman type halucinations (day 10).

Word.

my acl surgey i sscheduled for the 23rd, and doc said i will have a drip, but i thought it was just for a day or 3 afterwards. if i can type on the 24th i'll give a report

Originally Posted by FollowMe

Hey Lego, morophine - - are you sure? That's a narcotic and sort of goes against the whole "localizing" the anesthetic thing, doesn't it? I think a morophine drip is for terminally ill patients.

Regardless, good luck.

My bad, after further reading its not morphine, its just a local.

I think the whole point of the On-Q thingy is to increase the amount of local anesthetic and decrease the amount of oral pain meds. The whole goal is to block the pain receptors at the site of surgery to increase patient comfort. The drug that they put through the catheter isn't going to go through the whole body like a cancer patient's morphine drip, just to the local site of surgery.

It makes sense to me - You don't have to take as many oral pain meds and you can increase your mobility post-op (thereby decreasing complications). I suppose it's really a win-win device?

I had morphine for 24 hours while in the hosp after my ACl, but it was injected into the IV by the nurse. I stopped it and switched to Norco / hydrocodone as the morph was making me feel like ass and was not really killing the pain. After 7 days on the drugs I bailed totally on the scrips as I was losing it.

Damn, I could use a local drip thing right now. The leg hurts off and on, it's been about 26-27 hours since surgery. Ever since I started the CPM, my leg has been hurtin' a lot. I gotta talk to the doc about it today, not sure if it's supposed to hurt this much. i'm on Percs every 4 hours and Naproxin twice a day.

Good luck with the surgery Lego!

B)

Is the CPM set up properly? I had some pain due to the sling not allowing my calf and hammy to move freely during fexion. They gave me a diff sling. I really had no pin in the CPM. The pain was really only bad when trying to stand up.

My OS gave me what he called a morphine drip cocktail when I had surgery on May 19th. The only downside was the insertion site bled a bunch on the 20th and 21st. The drip worked as I felt no pain at all and only used the other pain meds initially for what could be considered recreational purposes.

The freaky part was pulling it out myself cause it was in a few inches from the entry point and kind of goo'ed on the way out.

If you haven't had your surgery yet I highly recommend the drip. Be aware some people get sick from narcotics and the drip plus pain meds often makes them puke. I didn't seem to have that problem .

Lego - I had one of those for my shoulder and it was fantastic. I seriously felt no pain in my shoulder the first couple of days, but wasn't all tripped out since I barely had to take any pain meds.

I believe it was actually novacaine that drips into the localized spot, but I could be wrong.

I had it in for a couple of days - maybe 48 hours - and then is just ran out so you remove it and chuck it.

In my experience, it was a great call.