Dealing with pain?

[iolaire]

Kristina, as Charlie has said, pain is different for everyone.  My post tx pain was well managed after my tx.  When I was sent home, I was given a script for painkillers that I ended up not needing.  I never had pain that the occasional paracetamol wouldn't take care of.  You should be given a list of over the counter and/or prescription meds a tx patient should avoid.  When it comes to pain, paracetamol is acceptable while an NSAID (ibuprophen) is not.

  I was told to not take more than 2000 mg of paracetamol/acetaminophen/Tylenol per day after the transplant. They did send me home with an opioid but I only a pill or two on that the first/night day.  I think the dosage limits related to them wanting to protect my liver as the immunosuppressant's are hard on the liver.

Well in recovery they had me on the morphine drip but they wanted me to use it as little as possible, I don't know if it was the day after (under 24 hours) or the second day (48 hours) when I stopped using it totally but quickly I found it was not necessary all the time and I could bare the pain most of the time.

I also feel pain is different for everyone and generally the medical folks tell you what they want you to do regarding pain management and the goal (these days) is to minimize addictive drug use.

[kristina]

Many thanks for your kind inputs, KatieV, Marilee, MooseMom and iolaire, I am very appreciative of your important information.
It is interesting to read about the different causes for kidney pain, listed by the Mayo Clinic ... and interestingly, when 
Katie mentioned her own kidney pain in connection with UTI's, I remembered that I also had regular occurring UTI's when I had kidney pain and sadly enough, the (many) doctors I consulted at that time did not see the connection between my kidney pain and the UTI's I was suffering from ...
And as Charlie has mentioned, pain is different for everyone and it is important to find out where it stems from in order to treat the underlying cause ...
Many thanks to all again from Kristina.