motrin for c section pain

[smartnurse1982]

Hello. I had a c section on Tuesday at 10am and just want to rant about my hospital stay. I know they tell you to walk ,but the tried to get me to walk 21 hrs after, and I had great pain. They said" I know you are in pain but you still have to walk. They medicated me with percocet 325mg but it was not enough. I also started to spike a low grade fever of. 99.9-102.8 and pulse 129 and had chills and sweating. I told them and they said doc says u have to drink more and walk more. I asked an intern about a urinalysis and he say for what?Also, the nurse refused to give me percocet b/c she said its making me not have a bm(I am passing gas) instead gave me motrin 600mg. I was in tears. Lastly, I want to complain about a clinical instructor. They gave me an iv of ns and it had a lot of air bubbles in it. I pointed it out to her and she just waved her hand at me like whatever. I never told anybody I was a nurse just so I could avoid this behavior but now I wonder if I should have. Thanx for reading, any input would be more then welcome welcome

[mykidzmom]

congratulations on the birth of your child!!!!!! i had a great experience with my c-section, and i can't help but think about it with your post, but that isn't really what you want to hear, is it? altho i WANTED to keep it a secret that i was a nurse, right from my pre-op registration, to holding re-surgery to surgery to post op to every aid and RN i had, the first freakin thing out of their mouth was "so you're a nurse!" it was a little embarrassing because i wanted to be a "good" patient and face it, we hate having nurses as patients (not as much as having patients with nurses as family members but that is another thread...).

it is so disturbing to read your post for so many reasons. what you wrote says so much about nursing. why were your needs dismissed? how many of us consider ourselves good, caring nurses and would never think we acted that way but had our actions or words misinterpreted? i am in no way excusing your treatment, but what if the instructor who dismissed your concern about the IV believed by waving off your concern believed by acting nonchalant about it thought that it would be reassuring to you if you knew SHE wan't worried. you know how patients pick up on our reactions--if they think we are worried then they worry. or maybe the nurse who only gave you tylenol was afraid of the narc getting thru your breast milk or had some crazy fear of getting you addicted. i don't know. i don't even believe my own words here, but i do think that people often mean to convey one message and a different one is received. i guess i am hoping that their intentions were good, but it came out wrong.

it could be that they just sucked. and if they sucked--why? there is no excuse, and i am sorry about your experience, but i would still want to know why it sucked. morale? out-dated beliefs on pain control? did a patient recently get overmedicated and everyone is freaked out now? stingy MD? why in the world they didn't give you toradol is beyond me. i have what i would consider an average to maybe below average pain thresh hold and i got 'round the clock toradol with the occasional vicodan.

i think as a fellow professional, it is your OBLIGATION to us to write a letter. it should be sent to the Chief Nursing Officer or whoever is head honcho of all nurses (probably not the CEO). i would recommend wording the letter in a way that doesn't make you sound like a whiney patient or a bitter nurse. of course, you should represent yourself as BOTH, but if the letter was worded less like a complaint and more like a paper you'd write for school or a magazine article, i think you would have the biggest impact. talk about the importance of pain management especially in the early post partum period. use your experience to illustrate. the need to explain rationale appropriately to patients as a way to calm there fears--be it the reason a u/a wasn't necessary (your symptoms sound like they could have been normal post op effects, but if that was explained to you i think you would have totally been fine with that) or why the air bubbles you saw were harmless. by the same token, you could offer that along with the education, allowing the patient a little control over things goes a long way to keeping a patient happy. the nurse could explain why the air bubbles were harmless, while flicking or drawing then out. if you had asked me about your symptoms and requested a u/a i wouldn't disrespect myself or my profession by just saying "derrrr, i guess i'll ask duh doctor" i would however, make it win-win. i would teach you what you needed to know, but leave the u/a cup in your room and say, i will mention it to dr. k and just in case dr. knowitall decides to go ahead and do a u/a you will have the cup right there and we can send it right in. you get to be the smarty pants, the patient gets to have control over a situation and the doc can ride in on her write horse and save the day with the order. basically you need to unemotionally state the problem, why it is a problem (evidence based practice, supporting research, standard of care, human decency) and what would be an appropriate solution.

again, i am so sorry for your experience. i suspect it was extra bad for you because you knew you would't ever treat anyone like that and didn't expect it for yourself! you will never regret speaking your mind. you might regret NOT speaking it.....good luck mamma!

[mama_d, BSN, RN]

Congrats on the baby!!!!!!

Sorry to hear that you had a bad stay. I can kinda understand some of the rationale from the nurses you had, but I think that they could have done some things differently. It certainly wasn't right for you to not have your concerns addressed in a compassionate manner.

I can understand the bowel/narc use concern, but it seems like they could have handled it differently...on my floor (not OB), when there's been no BM for a couple of days and the patient is on narcs, we add stool softeners and laxatives, and try to back off on the narcs as much as the patient can tolerate. This doesn't mean we deny them narcs if they're due, but rather that we educate the patient on the impact it has and try alternatives to see if they'll work, and if they don't, it's back to the narcs.

The getting up and walking is so important post-op, but would certainly have been easier if your pain was under control!

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

I think the big problem was that your concerns were just brushed off. I've had a Csection and 3 vbacs. With the csection I do remember having a PCA for at least 12 hrs after. Foley was dc'd soon after that. Percocet q 4 or 6 and then 800 of motrin every 8hrs. I remember being routine with taking them. I was in the hospital a bit longer than the average section due to toxemia too. As a nurse/ pt, I think we all think about what could have been done better/ differently. I think my big issues were that no one was around to help me up out of bed the first few times (DH told them I was a nurse) and that stool softners weren't pushed sooner. I had to ask/ beg for them and juices when I was able to tolerate po's.

Getting the brush off is never acceptable.

[Raefabian4]

WOW, I am so sorry for your experience. To look at the positive side of things, I bet this will make you a better and more compassionate nurse being through this. I will tell you that both of my kids were a C-section and they are 9 years apart but the same dr. did the surgeries and they would NOT give me anything other than go home and take advil. I got nothing in the hospital for pain except tylenol with codeine and that was one pill and I was in for 1 day after the surgery. It totally sucked and I am a nurse as well and I worked at this same hospital and everything is about making sure the patient is comfortable and free of pain etc. but it wasn't for my case that is for sure. I always said that if I ever had another child (I'm not anymore) I was going to go to the dentist and complain about a toothache and get me some tylenol with codeine to have on stock for after I got out of the hospital from my c-section. LOL.

[smartnurse1982]

Thanx everyone for your responses and I think I would write a letter about no one being there to assist with getting out of bed(no one even offered) and pain control(found out percocet and motrin were prn) maybe I was hard on the instructor but my pet peeve is a lot of air bubbles in ivs