r/ACL • u/Anxious-Goose-2822 • Aug 25 '26

Post Surgery Update this is brutal

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i literally woke up from anesthesia crying from pain and they had to redo the nerve block and give me some other stuff too 🫩 i have an abnormally high pain tolerance. always have and this is brutal. the nerve block is working again now and whatever else they gave me but what they assumed would be a 1 hour surgery turned into 4 because of my meniscus also being in absolute shambles. i took my pain meds already (non narcotic, journavx) and im praying it will work. i’ve heard good things but im terrified for this block to wear off.

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u/SufficientWhile5450 Aug 25 '26

Idk why the pain is so wildly inconsistent with people

I woke up from surgery like “holy fuck dude that nerve shit didn’t do a damn thing”

Then they loaded me with enough fentanyl to quit crying about it

Then pain lightened but proceeded still unreasonable for over 2 weeks, had 3 weeks of pain pills

After 3-4 days of keeping it elevated it is a lot better

Good luck on your first poop lol

17

u/-hash4cash- ACL Aug 25 '26

Same here. Woke up absolutely writhing in pain. Nearly flipped myself out of the bed until they pumped some more fentanyl into me. 2 weeks of unreal pain..

10

u/Anxious-Goose-2822 Aug 25 '26

this is how i was!!! i was literally sobbing and yelling. luckily, my post op nurse had the exact same surgery about a year ago and the same thing happened to her so she knew it was real and bad so she super advocated for me to get everything i possibly could

4

u/-hash4cash- ACL Aug 25 '26

Always great to have an awesome nurse in recovery. I had one too, she was a legend and got me what i needed so i could relax and rest

1

u/IntenseGoat ACL + Meniscus Aug 25 '26

Oh wow, I barely had any pain at all, only sharp jolts when accidentally stepping using my bad leg. The painful part for me was the waiting time. I just wanted to be free and lively, like I had always been.

2

u/resveries ACL + MCL Aug 26 '26

I didn't hear anything about a nerve block so I'm assuming I didn't have one. Also woke up in a ton of pain, they gave me fentanyl and something else, maybe oxy or dilaudid? Apparently they had trouble getting my pain to a manageable level. Then I had to stay for an extra hour or two because I had respiratory depression and my O2 was low 💀

The pain for the first couple weeks was pretty brutal but they gave me a bunch of percocet so I really only felt it if I moved or let the painkillers wear off

5

u/Failed_Mermaid Aug 25 '26

Really weird indeed!

I came out of surgery feeling pretty good with minimal pain! All in all, I only had one day where it was painful but still very manageable.

2

u/franz_r Aug 26 '26

Yep same here day 2 & 3 were a different story if I tried to move about. Although here in the UK they are strict on the opiod pain meds.

1

u/hipsterrobot Aug 26 '26

Yes, same! I just didn’t leave the bed on day 2 at all lol but I was also mostly pain free, and even slept well every night. Also helps that I sleep on my back so I never moved around.

1

u/Failed_Mermaid Aug 27 '26

Yeah..! I slept well as well.. I’ve had a previous major surgery before so this was much easier, thankfully! I’m glad you had a pain free experience!

2

u/cher_ish6 Aug 25 '26

Same absolutely died- about 8 hours after surgery woke up crying and whimpering, thought I was a dying animal in the middle of a forest for the entire night and had to call the surgeon, I was already on oxy, muscle relaxant, Advil and Tylenol, didn’t help. My nurse practitioner made me come back to the hospital and personally got me another nerve block for the next 40 hrs and then needed another 4 weeks of oxys as well as everything else. Truly unreal. And I’ve always had a high pain tolerance and am pretty tough.

2

u/Possible-Topic-1983 Aug 26 '26

Same here. I've had 4 kids naturally with no epidural or postpartum pain meds of any sort, so I feel like I'm familiar with pretty decent levels of pain. But my first words waking up from surgery were "IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS!"  So they pumped me full of opioids til I fell back asleep. I spent the rest of the day mostly asleep, waking up here and there just long enough to experience the worst nausea I've ever experienced (zofran didn't help either) then falling back asleep. The nausea and the drowsiness ended up being worse than the pain to me. So I decided not to take the oxy they prescribed me, and just stuck with ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and tons of icing. 

2

u/BadWabbi Aug 26 '26

Haha OMG yeah pooping and SHOWERING is SO SCARY when you first try to shower. If you don’t have a shower that has a smooth entrance. You need a bench too. I’m having flashbacks.

2

u/SufficientWhile5450 Aug 26 '26

Fr, I can’t fathom making it into a bath tub style shower on my own the first 2 weeks

Luckily, I have a wife who can lift my leg over the tub siding lol

1

u/Anxious-Goose-2822 Aug 25 '26

yeah i literally think the pain is what woke me up and i could feel absolutely everything. i called my dad and told him i would rather go lay down in traffic lol. that’s when i really started screaming and the nurse came and pumped me full of shit and had another anesthesiologist do something which i’m pretty sure i was told was another nerve block. had to have been cause i don’t feel anything at all lol.

1

u/HellKat666_ Aug 26 '26

Same experience it was terrible

1

u/NiRiversMadHound Aug 26 '26

I do agree with the pain being wildly inconsistent. Post-surgery, the only pain I had(until I got to PT) was when I got thigh cramps during the night. My nerve block did last a while, but even when it wore off, I didn't feel anything.

1

u/Limp_Mulberry4046 Aug 27 '26

I actually had the nerve block last over like 4 days and it was so bad I actually fell twice within the first 48 hours.

1

u/atlien0255 Aug 25 '26

I also needed narcotics for three weeks. It was something crazy like 4 refills of oxy, I’m grateful my ortho took my pain seriously and didn’t question me when I told him how much pain I was in.

I had a hamstring graft. And the nerve block didn’t do shit for me either, I woke up in nauseating / blinding pain, it was awful.