Younger patient = more pain?

[cbdheartman]

The nurses kept telling me that in their experience the younger patients bounce back more quickly, but also experience more pain because of more tuned in neurons (non-scientific way of putting it). Any truth to that? This seems to match up anecdotally with the older folks I've talked to who described the chest pain in terms of soreness and post-operative issues not dealing with pain but with sleep. Thoughts?

 

[Bina]

Get back to me once you have gone through child birth....

 

[Jkm7]

I had pain. Both surgeries. Everyone is different. I don't think there's a firm way for everyone.

 

[briansmom]

I was told the same thing when my son was in the hospital. He was on a Fentanyl (sp?) drip and I was kind of freaking out about it. They gave me the same line about kids having better senses or something.

 

[David L]

The nurses kept telling me that in their experience the younger patients bounce back more quickly, but also experience more pain because of more tuned in neurons (non-scientific way of putting it). Any truth to that? This seems to match up anecdotally with the older folks I've talked to who described the chest pain in terms of soreness and post-operative issues not dealing with pain but with sleep. Thoughts?

You hit the nail on the head as far as my experience is concerned. On August 5th of 08 I had my AVR and ascending aorta replaced at Stanford. I was 25 days short of 69 at that time. I never needed any pain medication. I was just sore in the sternum. My building was next door to the trauma center, and the helicopters coming and going added to my sleeplessness. I asked to go home on the 6th day post op so I could get some sleep.
Oh, yes, after one year I feel like a million bucks right now. Back in the gym lifting again and doing aerobics. Had my 1 year check-up monday, and was given the green light to do anything I wanted to do.

 

[barb]

That's exactly what I was told. At 47 I'm still considered young for this surgery and was also told that younger patients will feel more pain because of something to do with nerve endings. In ICU, while still on the vent,I tried to use sign language to tell my husband I was in pain. That failed so I motioned for something to write with and wrote the word pain on a piece of paper which they were all kind of amazed at. I was fully awake and aware but totally in pain. That's when the nurses explained to us the theory about younger patients. It was hard to get pain under control in ICU so I ended up on fentanyl as someone else mentioned. Once on the step down unit pain meds were effective.

My friend who is a nurse practitioner advised me not to try to cut back on pain meds (which I thought I could do) for about the first two weeks. Once I followed her advice, I was in better shape.

 

[skeptic49]

Interesting thread. That's what's great about this site...when you learn something you didn't know.

Jim

 

[john79t]

I am 61 and experienced significant pain. In fact 2 days post op I was thinking I hope this fixes me because I don't know if I could talk myself into it again. Now 6 weeks post op I feel great!

 

[realkarl]

I was told the same (younger = more pain).. In the hospital it was necessary for me to take 2 percocet and then 2 oxycodon every other time every 4 hours. Fortunately, my surgeon's directions were that it was much more important to be painfree and be able to walk, breathe and use the spirometer, than be overly careful with painkillers.

The prescription I brought home was for 1 percocet every 4 hours. To begin with I had to take 2, but only during the day, and perhaps every 5-6 hours. Now my chest is very painful only in the morning, requiring 1.5, and then I take 1 two times, mid-day and afternoon. Without, I have pain breathing fully or walking briskly, so this helps me exercise with higher intensity. I keep track of usage in a spreadsheet, and with the current trend, I should be off the percocet in another week or so.

 

[COLLEEN S]

CBD,
My first surgery was when I was 34. My second was 46. I definitely had less pain on the second. The neuron theory sounds very plausible, but is contradicted by the scar tissue theory (that the more surgeries you've had, the more adhesions (scar tissue) there is to go thru, and alas, more pain.

 

[Maryka]

Now that you bring it up...

I wrote my Master's Thesis on Sociological Aspects of Pain Perception (don't ask...) and, yes, younger people experience more pain than older people. Verified scientificly years ago. But, your Mac Truck analogy works for my experience also!

 

[pamela]

I'm sure there's a correlation to age and pain, but not solely based on the physiologic age of the neurons. I'm sure as we age our pain threshold is deeper simply because our experience of different pain manifestations is rich with variety and intensity.

As Bina mentioned, in women, childbirth brings post-surgical pain into a different focus because we have something real to measure the strength of the pain against. The same with people who've had some kind of physical trauma prior to OHS, they can relate what they feel as they awaken to a previous experience. To some, the sternotomy and other surgical insults will be less painful than childbirth or acute appendicitis but still others will find high levels of distress simply because nothing this major has ever occured in their lives.

That's my theory anyway.

 

[MarkU]

Had my AVR at age 47 and it hurt well enough. I have no desire to have another one to confirm the theory.

Mark

 

[Marcia58]

I'm 50, so as far as I'm concerned, I'm still young. I had a mini-thor, and my experience was similar to barb's. I woke up, alert and clear, just as they did the "3-count" to move me onto the ICU bed. I've had 4 babies (1 by c-sect) and I had NEVER felt such pain! What used to be a 10 on the "pain scale" got bumped down to about a 5. I told my DH that if I ever needed another OHS, I'd do it, but I'd really struggle with it, emotionally. He didn't get it.

 

[baradonai]

Old lady was putting me to shame

Old lady was putting me to shame

I had MVR on the same day of this 80+ year old lady. I could barely walk the hall because of so much pain and she was zooming by me. She had also had 2 bypasses with her replacement. I asked why and the nurse said that older people's muscles were more relaxed and loose, so moving around in them didn't affect them as much.