Fractured collarbone pain relief

[missy111]

I fell off my horse and fractured my collarbone last night. Waiting on the surgeon contacting me today regarding playing. I was sent home with dihydrocodeine, and told to take it with paracetamol and ibuprofen. What's the best regime to ensure maximum pain relief, currently having two good hours after taking them, then 1 ok hour and 1 agonising hour before next dose.

My XH had this injury - he took the paracetamol and the codeine then two hours later the ibuprofen and so on - so he was getting pain relief every two hours. Save a dose for just before bedtime.

Codeine can make you very constipated so keep up your fluids and roughage (They usually give you lactulose in hospital if you are taking it regularly)

That looks nasty break - are you having it pinned? XH had his pinned a few weeks after the accident, and it has healed well now.

I did mine 18 months ago falling off horse. Ouch!! I did the same as pp - swapped about drugs every 2 hours. I slept sitting up for around 4 weeks. - also had chest wall injuries and broken ribs which made lying down and getting back up again absolute torture. I also wore the sling pretty much 24/7 for the first few weeks although you're not really meant to I don't think.
That does look like a bad one and imagine they will want to pin it - I was advised not to have mine pinned as it makes it very vulnerable in future if you were to fall off again. Thankfully mine healed quite quickly and doesn't seem to have left me with any issues.

As PP, spread out your pain relief every two hours and this should help to relieve some of the peaks and troughs x

Thanks all. Ended up being admitted for pain relief, as I just couldn't get on top of it. Hopefully having it pinned tomorrow, as long as there aren't any emergencies over night which bump me down the list!