Post surgery

[Mrsmummy90]

Sorrythis is long winded.

In July last year I had my gallbladder removed.
When I came out of surgery, I woke up in recovery and was in agony.
The nurse put a dose of morphine in my cannula and asked how I was feeling now. I said still sore so she immediately gave me another dose.
She asked again and I said still a bit sore so she gave my a third dose.
All of them were one after the other.

The next thing I remember is being moved from the trolley onto the bed in the ward. I'd had an oxygen mask on so they removed it to move me. I started gasping for air (morphine is a respiratory depressant) and felt like I was suffocating. I heard a nurse ask "is she ok?" and another replied "I read on her notes that she has anxiety".
They put the oxygen mask back on and I could breathe again.

A nurse then started to clean up a surgical wound that had started bleeding and she said, "you look totally out of it! I've just read your recovery notes and I have no idea why they've given you so much morphine"

So AIBU to want an inquest into what happened? (After covid has calmed down obviously. They have enough to deal with right now.)
I'm not sure if it's normal practice to give 3 doses of morphine and I've been speaking to a few friends in medical professions and they don't think it's normal either.
It's something that occasionally pops into my head and it just doesn't sit right.

Thanks for reading it you made it this far 😂

I had quite a few doses of morphine after my GB removal as I was in agony (later to discover I had a pancreas disease and all kicked off after this). Fairly normal to give more if people are in pain, I remember the nurses having a good old chat and kept giving me more, but I wasn’t complaining as I’d rather that than be left in pain, and that’s happened to be in hospital too.

Can I ask what your concern is? There’s no hard and fast rules with how much someone has post op, though there are guidelines of course. Did you take a long time to recover from the morphine etc? You can ask for pals to investigate but as you know the NHS is very busy right now so might be some time until you hear

Thanks for your reply. It just felt like quite a large amount and it worried me that when taken off the oxygen, I couldn't breathe and the nurses just thought I was anxious as I wasn't hooked up to any monitors.
Had they not put the oxygen back on, I would have suffocated.

It may be nothing but it just makes me feel uneasy.
I just wasn't sure if it was a them problem or a me problem.

You said you were sore and you got pain relief. You weren’t given an overdose. You weren't suffocated. What’s the problem?

Do you genuinely think you would have died without the oxygen?

So I’m not a nurse but I have had gallbladder surgery and I have a few conditions that require me to have morphine quite often. It’s pretty normal to have 3 or more syringes of morphine in one go. I had my oxygen mask taken off as soon as my surgery was done so can’t comment on that but does sound a bit like anxiety. I struggle to breathe when mines bad. the morphine sounds normal. I was on a lot of pain relief after the surgery I had . I think if it’s truly bothering you then get in touch with pals and ask to go over your surgery notes.

A first step could be paying for your notes, it’s under £50, think it varies per hospital. That way you can see what’s been written in the notes but I do think it’s normal to have more than 1 lot of morphine, I’ve had numerous procedures and surgeries now and definitely had a few doses as I’ve needed it. The nurse who made the comment about not knowing why you had so much wasn’t the recovery nurse and doesn’t know how much pain you were in to comment really.

@CharlotteRose90 I guess my thoughts were if the dosage was too high. I probably wouldn't have thought about it but the nurse on the ward commented how she couldn't believe they'd given me so much.
Glad to know it's a pretty standard amount.
Thanks so much

@Darbs76 I've only had 2 surgeries and the after the first one, I didn't require any medication so I had no idea if it was normal or not and as the nurse had commented, I assumed it was a bit overboard.
It's comforting to know that other people have similar doses and it's normal.
Thank you

Do you think it would be helpful if you could talk through what happened and why? Like a debrief?

Perhaps your GP would be able to talk you through it?

It sounds more like it's left you with a lingering sense of unsafeness due to it being a little traumatic, rather than that either side was a "problem". Those feelings seem a bit stuck right now but might resolve if you could fill in some of the gaps.

After GA you would have been out of it, morphine or not, and that can add to how scary and out of control you felt when things were happening to you - as well as heightening your sense of your life being in danger.

Please don’t anyone think this is a critical of the nhs in general. But..
Op, some nurses seem to think that you should be in zero pain and don’t listen to the patient , when it’s clear that the patient is in severe pain and some are compassionate and believe a patient should not be in pain after surgery and modern medicine can alleviate suffering.

I know which I would prefer having been on the receiving end of both types.

It's ok to be critical of the NHS when it's warranted. That's how we safeguard people.

[quote Mrsmummy90]@CharlotteRose90 I guess my thoughts were if the dosage was too high. I probably wouldn't have thought about it but the nurse on the ward commented how she couldn't believe they'd given me so much.
Glad to know it's a pretty standard amount.
Thanks so much [/quote]
I think the nurse probably mentioned it because some people tolerate pain and some don’t. There was a lady the same ward as me that didn’t have any relief at all whereas I had morphine, oxycodone and some medicated heat strips. I was in agony after mine and developed sepsis. Speak to PALs and ask for a run through of your notes. Might put your mind at ease.

@user194729573 I've never thought of it like that.
I had a post surgery phone call in December but there was an admin error so a surgeon called that didn't do my procedure and just asked am I having any problems.

I'll wait until covid is in the background and then I may request a debrief.

It obviously depends on the size of the doses! But no, it sounds rather normal. The only extraordinary thing is that a nurse who was not present and not part of the clinical judgement made unprofessional comments to a patient. If she had genuine concerns about the medication then there are clear procedures she should have followed, and worrying patients for no cause is not one of them.

Gasping for air on removing an oxygen mask is not uncommon. The "air" that you are breathing is much richer in oxygen (obviously) than the air around you, and your body adapts to that level, so when the mask is removed some people find that their bodies react with shock at being "starved" of oxygen. It's the reverse of climbing up a mountain - go high enough and your body doesn't get enough oxygen and will start to react to that change.

Do ask for your notes.

But the two things could be unrelated. When a relative of mine was very ill (late stages of cancer) she had a lot of morphine but then had a bad reaction to another drug and had breathing issues. It could be your breathing issue was unrelated.

@Moondust001 I had no idea that coming off an oxygen mask can cause that reaction.
I'm so glad I posted as it's helping me see it in a different light.

I never even considered that the ward nurse may have been out of line saying that to me. I genuinely assumed that there must have been a dosage error and it's really freaked me out.

Other than this 'incident', the care I received overall was fantastic. (and I had a lovely few days of sleep which I don't get at home as my toddlers don't think that sleep is necessary)

I've just realised that the word 'inquest' in my OP is the wrong word to use. I should've said enquiry.

Sounds well within the realms of normal. Typically we’d prescribe a small dose of opioid to be given every few minutes up to a specified max dose. Sounds like a rather unhelpful comment from the nurse questioning the recovery care - they weren’t there and didn’t see how much pain you were in. You would not have been discharged from recovery if your cardiovascular or respiratory parameters had been terribly wonky (needing a bit of oxygen after a lap chole isn’t that uncommon). You would almost certainly not have suffocated without the oxygen (having been on supplementary oxygen it would have taken time for your oxygen levels to drop when they took the mask off so feeling like you’re gasping immediately is probably an anxiety/post-op disorientation issue rather than a proper respiratory problem). Morphine and other opioids slow the respiratory rate down - typically you take less frequent but bigger breaths and that probably feels pretty odd. They’d probably be able to go through things in more specific detail if you wanted - I guess via the consultant’s secretary/pals would be the way to go.

respiratory depression from morphine means your breaths slow right down and space out, it doesn’t mean you suffocate without oxygen