Which Do You Think is Better for Pain After a Tummy Tuck?

Thank you for the question. Good pain control after tummy tuck is very important for many reasons. Besides the important concern of patient comfort, good pain control allows for better/easier deep breathing exercises and ambulation. These measures may lead to decreased incidences of pulmonary complications and/or thromboembolic phenomenon.These days plastic surgeons have many options when it comes to pain control after tummy tuck surgery. The use of narcotic medication, muscle relaxants, non-narcotics, pain control pumps, and long-lasting local anesthetics have made the postoperative experience much better than in the past. The specific medications used will vary from one practice to another.In our practice, all patients undergoing, tummy tuck surgery receive a postoperative pain control pump. I have yet to have a patient complain of the "hassle" factor. In my opinion, there is no demonstrable difference between the use of local anesthesia provided through a pain pump versus long lasting injectable anesthetics. There are certainly no objective studies that demonstrate the superiority of one over the other. Best wishes.

The short answer is the On-Q pain pump works better. The long answer is that Exparel is a better choice.Essentially Exparel is a very long-acting local anesthetic that works great. It lasts approximately 3 or more days following injection. This is the same length of time that a pain pump lasts and will therefore take the place of a pain pump. This means patients can enjoy the same effect of a pain pump, but without any catheters and no pain pump to carry around plus decreases spasm of muscles after a tummy tuck.Exparel will be available for those concerned about minimizing discomfort after surgeries such as tummy tuck and breast augmentation.Exparel costs the same as a pain pump and produces the same result but with less hassle. I use if in virtually all of my tummy tuck patients.

With a methadone history your postop pain management will be more complicated. I'm not a big fan of pain pumps but Marcaine injected into the fascia at the time of closing seems to help. Toradol is an excellent drug but can be given orally for only a brief time.