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Post surgery pain

Avoidable Some of the trauma is unnecessary

Children who have their tonsils removed are known to experience significant pain after surgery, but they might suffer unnecessarily because they get inadequate pain relief once they are sent home, a study reports.

The study followed a group of 261 children, ages 2 to 12, who had their tonsils and adenoids removed at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital.

During the children’s first day at home after surgery, fully 86 percent of parents rated their child’s pain as significant. But even though the parents had been sent home with appropriate pain medicine, almost one-quarter of the children were given either none at all or just one dose the entire day.

Parents might have been reluctant to provide the medication, a combination of Tylenol and Tylenol with codeine, for any number of reasons, said Dr. Michelle A. Fortier, first author of the paper and a paediatric psychologist at the University of California, Irvine.

“They may want to withhold it until the pain is very severe,” Fortier said. “They may want to stretch the time between doses so as not to use too much. And there is still some belief that they may be setting their child up for addiction if they use too much.” As noted in the report, the findings may be attributed to a number of reasons and not receiving the recommended amount of pain medication may have various outcomes. Some medical experts reportedly state that many young patients are taken to emergency rooms for pain related issues following surgery. (NYT)

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