I had my pre-op appointment today, and as the nurse was going over everything, she had me sign some paperwork about using the On-Q PainBuster. Has anyone had this, and can you tell me about it??

I had a pain pump. But I don’t think it was an On-Q.

I had the on-Q when I had thoracic surgery to remove a tumor from my esophagus. It is a little tube that is inserted at the surgical site. It connects to a softball sized sphere that is full of the pain medicine - not narcotic, but an anesthetic kind of like novocaine or lidocaine. The sphere slowly compresses on itself until it is empty. This can take several days, so the anesthetic is continual. You wear a little pocket with a strap to hold the sphere. The tubing is often sutured into the skin to prevent it from sliding out accidentally.

It is used for surgical sites that are extensive and painful - maybe like a big hernia repair, an open gall bladder removal, or like my chest surgery where I also had a chest tube and intercostal nerves were involved. It is not used that much for basic laproscopic surgeries which have minimal pain compared to open surgeries. The sutures on mine were very bothersome. Every time I accidentally caught the tubing on something it felt like my skin was being ripped off.

I've never heard of someone having it for laproscopic weight loss surgery. The pain associated with WLS is from gas (Gas is put into your abdominal cavity to expand the field of view. It is sucked out, but any residual gas has to dissipate into the tissues on its own and that can be uncomfortable. I had NO gas pain after gastric bypass.) The other pain associate with WLS is surgical pain of the procedure itself. There is a lot that goes on underneath those little laproscopic incisions. But it is not unbearable. For comparison, I would say my broken pelvis and ribs from a horseback accident were MUCH more painful. That was a 9/10. My thoracic surgery was a 6-7/10. My total knee replacement was a 5/10. My gastric bypass was 4/10. I needed morphine maybe twice in the hospital, percocet for a day at home, and then tylenol for about a week.

I had it for my RNY. It was absolute rubbish and ended up falling out. The powers that be want to end the use of narcotics ?

12 minutes ago, froufrou said:

I had it for my RNY. It was absolute rubbish and ended up falling out. The powers that be want to end the use of narcotics ?

I did notice that the “pain” meds he wrote the script for me to fill was tramadol, which is not the usual hydrocodone-acetamenaphine combo... hmmm

I should note — my husband had a double lung transplant two years ago. If I *wanted* a strong pain medication, there are plenty in my house! And I manage all of his medications for him weekly - heaven forbid I have any complications in this upcoming surgery

Wow! Hope he is doing well! Just think positively. I hope you have some back up!