Shrinkage and Drug Games

My surgical wound on my outer left foot is now a scab.  I'm hoping it'll come off by itself one day, since sometimes it itches like crazy - mainly when I'm wearing socks (guess what I'm not wearing right now).  I have one more appointment with the wound care specialist left.

As far as pain is concerned, yep - it's still there.  My pain management doctor decided it was time to "wean" me off of the pain medicine.  He said it's probably the cause of a big drop in my bio-available testosterone, which was way below the normal healthy limit on two out of the three last tests by my primary care doctor.  (He also said it was the cause of a spike in my weight, back up over 310.)  The third test came after a pair of injections, which brought things back up into the low normal range.  So, in response to this, the pain doctor wanted to get me off my medicine to see if my testosterone would stabilize and if my weight would drop down.

I don't know what my current testosterone level is, but I do know one other thing - my PAIN is still there.  Under the previous medicine, I was limping around the house with a level between 5 and 7 on a zero-to-ten scale (zero being no pain, ten being GIVE ME THE !#$% SHOT NOW!!!).  Once the medicine was completely out of my system, my range bolted up to a 7 at best and a 9 at worst, with 8.5 being pretty much the norm.

So, back to the pain doctor.  Explain what's going on.  Grimace while he makes me walk around without a cane.  After that, he writes me a prescription for a non-narcotic pain medicine (Tramadol) and tells me to watch out for signs of Serotonin Syndrome due to the other medications I have to take (oh, joy).

The tramadol is sort-of doing its job.  I don't hit 9 anymore, but I still hover around 7 when sitting.  Walking any distance other than inside my house can bring on brief bouts of 8.5, so my wife is still taking care of most outside duties.  This is going to be put to the test soon, when we attend an IndyCar race.  Both of us love IndyCar, and we are NOT going to miss this.  I'll have emergency supplies to take care of the pain (Tylenol - I can take it when the tramadol doesn't work) and the nausea which the gastric bypass STILL causes if I don't stay hydrated, or if I eat too much / not enough, or if I eat the wrong thing, or if a butterfly flaps its wings in China.

At least the weight is on its way down again, albeit slowly.  It was 304 at last check, and I don't feel so bloated as I did under the low-testosterone conditions.  The only thing that hasn't changed is my heart PVCs.  One of them hit me while I was writing this paragraph.

Wish me luck, pick your bariatric doctor carefully, and thanks for reading!