Having surgery - worried about pain meds & bfing

[CAKJNH]

I'm having surgery on Tuesday and the dr gave me an rx for percocet. I'm worried about taking it while bfing. The dr says it's not a big deal since I'm not on it long term, etc, but still...I worry. I was on percocet for 1.5 yrs (almost daily) for a shoulder injury.I weaned myself off of it about 6 wks prior to getting pregnant. (I'm not worried about addiction, etc). I took Vicodin for after pains after I had DD3 (not knowing then what I know now...) She was fine but still...

I'm having a laparoscopic tubal band surgery - has anyone done this? Was the pain worse than afterpains...I managed that ok this time with just Tylenol.

ADDED: Has anyone had general anesthesia while breastfeeding? I've never used it as I've never had surgery before. The closer I get to Tuesday, the more nervous I am.

TIA!

If this thread needs to be moved, I wasn't sure if should be here or not.

[jrabbit]

you'll be fine with it - that's what i took after surgery.
as long as it's not for **long** term it shouldn't even hurt your milk supply. Dr. Searshas some good practical advice about bfing with meds, which i can look up for you if you can't find it on the net.

[Starfish11]

I don't have specific information but good luck!

[mamavegan]

I had surgery (under general) and BF'd while on percocet. I also had morphine and BF'd shortly after.

[Swandira]

I had morphine for the first 12 hours after Odin was born (c/s ) and then percocet for about a week. It definitely didn't affect my supply -- my milk came in with a vengeance at right around the 24-hour mark, and I still soak through the jumbo Lansinoh nursing pads about every 3 hours or so. It doesn't seem to have affected his growth or development either -- he's already grown over 3 inches and gained 50 % of his birthweight at 8 weeks. He can roll over front to back and makes eye contact across the room and has "conversations" with us, cooing in response when we talk to him. I say this not to boast about my "genius" baby (though it is fun to do so, I admit) but to illustrate that it's probably OK to take percocet for a week or two after surgery -- it doesn't seem to weaken babies in the small amounts you'll be taking.

[CAKJNH]

Maybe a change in plans...

Thank you to everyone who posted! I hated being on the narcotics before. Thankfully, I'm always very careful and I can always start off with the meds cut in half...something I didn't think of before. I also have a prescription for Tylenol with Codeine that helped w/my shoulder injury. I could take it during my pregnancy if I had to, and it wasn't as risky as the percocet. So maybe we'll try that first.

With all 3 of my girls I had major milk supply issues. We are doing very well this time around with ds and I'm so afraid my milk will disappear. I can't even drink water after midnight and I'm not going into surgery til 8am (the earliest they could get me in). I'm going to take all my "helpers" - fenugreek, etc - and drink my mother's milk tea all night before midnight. Hopefully it will only be about 3-4 hours between feedings. I've got this schedule in my head, lol. I did talk to the "anesthetist" ( I thought it was anesthesiologist??) who is a mom who had low supply issues and even had a hard time pumping so she recognizes my concerns...however the one who is scheduled for my surgery is not her! She's on vacation that week (just my luck!).

Little Man may have RSV so now we may not be doing the surgery when planned. We finally met up with a friend whose son is 3 wks older than ds and her son was sick. Originally, the doctors thought it was just allergies to his formula (he has MAJOR food allergies and is on an RX only formula), but I told her I thought it was RSV...less than 24 hrs later he was rushed to the ER, his O2 sats dropped. He was admitted to the hospital Friday and diagnosed with RSV. Today is Sunday and now ds is all congested. (Though not coughing).

I've got a nebulizer (thanks to DDs1-3 all having RSV a couple of years ago, we actually have 2) with saline that helps every few hours and we've got the vaporizer going next to us. He's sleeping on me so he can nurse whenever he wants , as we sit in my recliner, lol. But he has a slight fever.So I doubt my ob-gyn will want to do the surgery now. DH won't be happy as we scheduled his whole vacation for the year around this surgery being right after ds's birth.

[CAKJNH]

Those who have had a c/s-I don't know how you do it!!

I can't believe how much 2 little holes hurt! Those who have had a c/s or multiple c/s's - you are much stronger than I!! At least w/childbirth there's a pleasant goal to reach...a reward for the pain. Yesterday showed me I'm really a wuss, lol.

Thank you again to everyone who responded .
I am still sad - I feel like I'm in mourning over the loss of the that part of my life , but I know it is right. Each of my last pregnancies has had more complications than the last and I don't want to risk anything for myself or a baby.

I had the tubal banding done. It hurt like crazy after. It took about 6 hrs for the tube endings to die off, and it was excruciating. They decided to give me a 2nd dose of percocet (the 3rd pain killer - they gave me Fentanyl and something else as I woke up) when I couldn't stop moving trying to find anyway to ease the pain. Here's the kicker..I went home to my heating pad and took some Aleve & was able to sleep finally!!

Apparently, in addition to the type of surgery I had, I have a separation in my ab muscles from the pregnancy so they said to expect more pain from that as well as referred pain in my back and shoulders from the air in my abdomen.

My milk supply did drop a lot but we're almost back to normal now as Jonathan does NOT like a bottle still. (he waited 5 hrs yesterday before finally taking one from daddy - and it was milk. No formula still - an ongoing feat for me ).
And now I'm bleeding again - come to find out that's normal (?? no one told me that ) however it may have triggered my period ?? - I was looking forward to seeing if EBFing would hold it off for me since I've never done it this long. :

All sad/aggravating parts aside. I'm functioning-slowly. Jonathan is well, also. He fought off the cold or whatever he had and is back to normal. I'm very thankful for that especially since it seems every time we take our children to ANY medical establishment, they get sick! :

Enough rambling from me ( pain meds don't help that, haha).