DrugBuyers.Com: Temgesic and Surgery

Mindy,

Unfortunately I am unfamiliar with Temgesic so in that respect, my opinion may not even relate to you at all. But I wanted to share it with you just in case it may work for you also.

I am not sure what schedule Temgesic is, or if it is something that is prescribed pretty regularly, but if it is a fairly common med, then maybe you should think about telling your doctor what I told my surgeon before my back surgery last year.

Now granted, I do not know how Temgesic effects anesthesia but because I was taking diet pills along with more pain medication than had initially been prescribed by either my regular doctor (which my surgeon had consulted with prior to my surgery) or my surgeon, I was really afraid to inform him about the amount of the pain meds I had been taking for several months at that point. I was so afraid that he would question me about the higher dose of pain meds I was now taking, since neither he nor my regular doctor had prescribed this amount to me. There was no way I wanted to tell him I used an OP because of my ever growing tolerance to pain meds. I thought that if I did tell my orthopedic surgeon this, that he would not feel comfortable giving me pain meds after my surgery and the thought of that was horrible, especially now that I was so tolerant to the meds he had been prescribing in such low amounts!

But I was so afraid that if I do not come clean about the meds I was taking that I would somehow wake up in the middle of my surgery and I would feel everything, but I would not be able to move (yes, I probably watch too much Dateline, 20/20, Primetime, WHATEVER!!!, but one day I watched in complete horror, the fact that this phenomenon had in fact happened to people out there.)

I FREAKED OUT!!!! Not only did I not tell him about all of the pain medication (actually he only thought I was on vicodin, but I really was taking MS Contin from a different doctor, and Soma (a lot of the Soma too!)but as I said above, I was also taking 60mg of Phentermine each day and even though I knew my surgery was around the corner, I had not gone off of them completely. I knew this was dangerous because once I was out, something could really happen to my heart and that would be it, bye bye!!!

So......(I am finally getting to the point of my story here) Because I did not want to risk the possibility that I could possibly DIE from this surgery, even though I knew the chances of this happening was so minimal, but I did not even want to take a minimal risk, considering the possible outcomes of such a risk.

Therefore, I called my orthopedic surgeon's office and spoke to the nurse. I told her that I have an uncle and a cousin who are both doctors. My uncle is an ENT Doctor and my cousin is an Ortho surgeon himself (this is actually true, and to be honest, in the past they have given me medications that I may have needed, and they used to give me and my family, a lot of the samples of meds that they would get. You know, mostly anti-biotic, but helpful none the less!)

So I was not really lying, except I told his nurse that because I had just recently gotten insurance, so before I came to him I had gone to my uncle because of my back pain and he was able to give me medication for the pain, until I had the proper insurance. Therefore, my tolerance was much higher and I found I needed more mg each day to help with the pain.

So I never had to say anything about an OP. Then, with the diet pills, I did not want to say that my uncle or cousin gave me any samples of that or that they gave me a prescription for it because I only really needed to lose about 10-15 pounds at that time and that would look a little unprofessional and they might lose their credibility.

So I said that even though I knew it was not the right thing to do as well as it was dangerous, I said that I had been taking my husbands phentermine for the last several months and because of this I was freaked out. Especially since I knew that my heart rate may be effected by taking it and I did not want to put myself in danger.

Yep, that was it. I was able to come clean about the meds, without raising too many eyebrows. Although that nurse told my surgeon right away and he called me back that same afternoon. I could tell he did not approve of my receiving meds from my family members. Especially since they were phentermine and MSContin. But I assured him I was no longer planning on taking these meds as I knew it was a bad decision and in the future I will only take the medication doses that are prescribed to me by him, or by my regular doctor.

He was pretty cool about the whole thing, in fact he mentioned that I had done the right thing by sharing this info with him, especially with the risks that could be involved.

Then he said that because of the diet pills, he wanted to have an EKG and an ultra sound of my heart, just to make sure everything was working properly. I actually thought this was a good idea and I felt so relieved when he said that!! Especially since I had tried Phen-Fen in the past but I never had the proper tests done to make sure I had not developed PPH. So I went and had this done before my surgery and I found out everything was fine!!!!

So when the day of the surgery came, I was not nearly as scared as I had been prior to coming clean! I just finally realized that being afraid to tell my surgeon about the other meds I had been on was nothing compared to the possibility that I may not wake up from my back surgery. Or that I could possibly wake up during surgery, but no one would know since I could be paralyzed yet able to feel everything that was happening. OH BOY, that one gets me, really!! I know I watch too much TV, but hey....at least it scared me into doing the right thing, you know.

If I were you, I would plan on telling your doctor about EVERYTHING you have been taking. You can either say that you have a doctor in your family, or that your best friend's sister is a doctor, or just tell him what you had said earlier, that it was an older medication that you had found and because your pain was getting increasingly worse, you wanted to see if your pain could decrease by trying it out again, but that you know it was a mistake and you will not do it again.

Good Luck, and even though others that have taken that med and have come out of surgery just fine, do not take a chance. Everyone is different and weirder things have happened! Really, it is not worth it.

--------------------
Flea