Nightmares/terrors following surgery in 4-yr-old - Help.

[ACsMom]

DD1 had tonsils/adenoids removed last Friday, so it's been 5 days. Her recovery is going great in every way except that for the past several nights, she has woken up in the middle of the night screaming/crying and saying she had a bad dream. We make sure she's not in pain (she insists she's not) and then try to soothe her (well, one of us soothes her, the other takes care of the baby who of course wakes up during all of this). The screaming is really primal, like the kind of screaming she did right after waking up in the recovery room right after the surgery. She remembers nothing about it in the morning. What's up with this? Is this just a "normal" reaction to the trauma of surgery, her way of blowing out the ballast, so to speak? I plan to talk to the doc about it, but I'm pretty sure they won't know anything - maybe they'll surprise me. Is this a common reaction to surgery in kids??

Thanks for any insights.

[Devaskyla]

That sounds like a really extreme reaction. I hate to suggest it, but is it possible she had inadequate anesthesia? Have you tried talking to her about surgery?

I've got a book out from the library at the moment called Sleep Talk. Maybe something like that could help her? Here's the website: http://www.sleeptalk.net/

[spmamma]

DD gets night terrors on occasion, and they were pretty scary for us. Just like your DD, she'd wake up screaming that primal scream in the middle of the night and not remember it in the morning. Her ped. explained to us that they often occur when a child is sick or on a medication (they always happened to her if she was under the weather). Is she taking anything right now?

[ACsMom]

spmomma, yes, she has been on hydrocodone, and I think I may have found the culprit. She's been needing it less and less, so last night I gave her tylenol only and we had no nightmares. She did wake up needing more tylenol, but that I can handle. So we'll see what happens tonight and in the next several nights. I know the times I've been on narcotic pain meds, I've had some weird dreams and sleeplessness.

Devaskyla, yeah - those kind of thoughts were going through my head. It scared the hell out of me to think of that. I asked her about it, though, and she remembers nothing about the surgery at all. I would think if she had been able to feel anything during the procedure she would remember something. She barely seems to remember them carrying her back to the OR, and doesn't remember the crying/screaming after waking up from anesthesia. Also, there were about 8 kids having surgery that morning and every one of them came out crying like she was. So - hopefully - these are signs that the anesthesia worked the way it's supposed to and she will have no lasting trauma. Yeek...makes me shiver just thinking about it.

Sleep Talk is a good book, according to several friends of mine - I should read it!

Thanks for the replies