This past week I had a wisdom tooth extracted and part of another tooth removed. It was a quick 35 minute surgery and before I knew it, I was on my way home. As with any surgery, the doctor sends you home with a prescription for pain. I have had numerous pain medications, but this was my first encounter with Lortab and it will be my last!
My surgery was mid-morning and it was not until mid afternoon that I started to feel the first twinges of pain. Wanting to be on top of the pain and not wait until I was IN pain, I decided to pop a pain pill and continue chilling on the couch. I did just that minus the chilling.
One hour after taking the Lortab, I started to feel nauseous. My first thought was that it was the anesthesia working it's way out of my system that was making me nauseous. I was told following my ear surgery that I might feel some nausea due to the wearing off of the anesthesia. With this knowledge, I decided to take a nap and sleep the nausea away.
Just as I was about to doze off, the doctors office called to check on how I was doing. My hubby told them I was nauseous and they said it was from the Lortab, but not to worry. They would call in a prescription for nausea and I'd be good to go!
I woke up a couple hours later and I thought I was feeling better. "Thought," that's the key word. After taking care of my son's needs, it was after 6:30pm by the time I was able to get my supper. I had developed a nasty headache, which I thought was from lack of food. (I did not have breakfast because of the surgery and lunch was mashed potatoes and yogurt.)
I settled down on the couch with my tomato soup and started sipping away. Three sips later, I put down my tomato soup and curled up in the fetal position. The nausea was back.
Having experienced nausea with my pregnancy, I immediately started doing things that helped me during my pregnancy. I also took a nausea pill and waited for it to do it's work. (It definitely did not work as fast as Zofran). Fifteen minutes later, I was leaning over the toilet bowl offering it my lunch.
During my pregnancy, vomiting always made me feel better. "Ok," I thought, I'll be able to eat now. After two more sips of tomato soup, I put it down again and curled up in the fetal position. Fifteen minutes after that, I was back before the toilet bowl offering it the nausea pill and the few sips of tomato soup that I had managed to get down.
Surely, NOW I would feel better, right? Cold foods always did the trick for me during pregnancy, so I thought, "ICE CREAM." Much to my horror and dismay, I had three small bits of ice cream before I set it down and watched it melt. And, you guessed it, fifteen minutes later I gave the ice cream to the toilet bowl.
Everything gets hazy after this. I know I get on my pj's and crawl into bed. The headache I had earlier was now a throbbing, aching, pounding headache. As I lay in bed, the headache would subside, but as it did, my nausea would return and I would find myself leaning over the toilet boil in heaving convulsions. I had nothing in my stomach to offer. I think what did come up was my saliva!
I tried again to take a nausea pill only to leave it in the toilet bowl. After three or four times of laying down, having my headache go away, getting out of bed, heaving, having my headache return, laying back down etc...I FINALLY fell asleep and slept 11 straight hours and thankfully NO MORE NAUSEA!!!
From sharing this story with a few people, they shared with me that Lortab has this affect on many people. Others, like my neighbor, it does not bother. With all the pain medications out there, why would they prescribe one that may possibly cause some unpleasant side affects, similar to what I experienced. The nauseousness that I experienced Wednesday night was by far ten times worse than any I experienced while pregnant. Thankfully, I did not experience any severe pain, and the pain I did feel, was quickly sent packing by 600 miligrams of ibuprofen.
The moral of this story is, don't take Lortab if you've never had it before . It's not worth it. The next time I am at the doctor and they ask me if I am allergic to any medication, I am telling them Lortab!
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