General anesthesia wears off relatively quickly after the surgery is done. When the patient requires pain medication, either intravenous or intramuscular injections of narcotics are usually utilized to control pain. These injections can provide pain relief - but when the medications wear off, there is often a period of pain until the next dose takes effect.

There are patient-controlled methods of medications administration that reduce the need to ask for medications, wait for them to be given, wait for them to take effect, etc. Ask your doctors about this option if you are interested.

The common side effects of narcotics include drowsiness, nausea and vomiting, itching, constipation, etc. Sometimes the pain relief from these medications is incomplete but the fact that they suppress normal breathing means that more cannot be given (or at least must be given very cautiously).

If a spinal is used for the surgery, the numbness from the medication will persist for a few hours or so. After that, depending on what medications were injected at the time of the spinal, there may be little to no pain for quite some time. Duramorph (a form of morphine) is often given in order to decrease postoperative pain. One dose will last 18-24 hours after the operation. The side effects are similar to narcotics given by other means (nausea, vomiting, itching, etc.) but are usually minimal because of the low dose that is given.

If an epidural is used for the surgery, it can be left in to control pain after the opeartion. This allows very good pain relief with minimal sedation and much lower doses of narcotics. Side effects, while they can still occur, are minimized in this way. Narcotics of all sorts (including Duramorph as mentioned above) can be given via the epidural and repeated as needed. Or these medications can be given continuously, which means that pain relief should not wear off - but this method does limit your mobility some since you will be attached to a medication pump.