When I had to get about half of my right lung removed, the hospital initially put me on so many opioids that my right arm was temporarily paralyzed.
It was awful, and it took me a few minutes to explain it because I could barely form a sentence at a rate of a few words per minute.
They had me on an IV drip of Tramadol, a Morphine pump, 2 Dipidolor injections and then somehow decided ‘hey let’s give you Sufentanil’, which is about 500x more potent than morphine.
It didn’t take long before I started getting extreme itchiness all over, without being able to really scratch, and one of my arms went numb.
They gave me something to clear some of the opioids, probably Narcan, and I immediately got control back of my arm.
I was in the hospital for about 3 or 4 days if I recall correctly, and ended up being released from the hospital without a single painkiller prescription.
Even on a mind-numbing cocktail of opioids, that chest tube they stick between your ribs was the most insane pain I’ve ever experienced. I dislocated my knee once and it doesn’t even begin to come close.
As soon as they pulled the chest tube out though, it immediately became somewhat bearable. Still awful though.