I had surgery recently, a f*cking painful one.

I’ll tell you all about my surgery soon.

It was very dramatic.

I got a lot of cute selfies.

I had it done at a private clinic in Beverly Hills, which was waaaaaaaay better than a hospital with overworked, cranky staff.

Never again at a hospital. If I can help it.

It was as if I were having a medical procedure at The Four Seasons. My comfort and dignity were a priority.

Everybody was so nice, calm and considerate.

There was beautiful art on the walls.

I had the place to myself, no one else around. But maybe that’s because I got there at 5:00 a.m.

Nobody harassed me in recovery, either.

I f*cking hate the recovery room.

With the bright lights and loud talking, nurses calling my name, telling me what’s going on, waking up is the worst part of surgery.

I shake and shake. I’m f*cking freezing cold. Then, I puke. I warned them this would happen. But it didn’t happen. Not this time. I don’t remember waking up at all. That was f*cking awesome. Ah, the Beverly Hills treatment.

Actually my failure to shake, shiver and vomit may have been because I hardly ate for a couple days before surgery as there was a lot of drama and this procedure was not anticipated. Story to come.

Or maybe I am just so much healthier than I have ever been in me life. I exercise vigorously most days of the week. And all the naltrexone I have taken over the past couple of years has been miraculous. I know they didn’t give me Zofran because I have an adverse reaction to it which is all over my medical records.

In any event, I don’t remember one glorious thing from the moment I felt the versed burn the IV in my hand, at which point I said, “Ah versed? Now I will tell you all my secrets,” until I was wheeled out in the reception area. That’s when I came to. I asked, “Who got me dressed?”

“You did!” They told me.

“Really? Don’t remember a thing.” As it should be! (At a subsequent appointment, this mystery was solved.)

Then we went to Starbucks where I had a delicious sausage breakfast sandwich and my favorite drug, coffee.

After surgery, as I recuperated, I got to do something I was very curious to try:

Naltrexone with an Opioid

What?
Doesn’t naltrexone block the opiate receptors?
Wouldn’t that make the opioid not work?

Not a minuscule dose, less than 1 milligram.

That small opiate blocker with an opioid does something magical:

Protects the brain and makes the opioid work better.

With the tiny hit of naltrexone, I could feel my brain responding to the waves of my own endorphins, as I was still in a f*ck lot of pain.

The internal opiate system in a human is marvelously complex.

It affects how we experience pain, pleasure and warm fuzzing feelings about others. Has a lot to do with inflammation and immunity, too.

Taking a tiny opiate blocker with an opioid probably prevents the smothering and subsequent derangement of the opiate receptors which occurs when they are thoroughly inundated for too long with external opioids.

In that case, the opiate receptors get all confused.

You get sick, feel awful and are terribly depressed, unable to register pleasure and relief, and don’t recover. I’m speaking from experience. Did you read my LA Times Op-Ed?

I got this idea about taking naltrexone with an opioid from this article:

A Fresh Look at Opioid Antagonists in Chronic Pain Management.

Table from article:

Interesting, huh?

See the bottom of the table? I also high-dose naltrexone, which I promise I will explain in my next post.

Low Dose Naltrexone

I make my own low dose naltrexone. Read about why and how in my post On Low Dose Naltrexone.

After this recent surgery, I took a tiny dropper of it when I took the Percocet. I was aiming for less than 1 ml, under 1 mg of naltrexone.

I also tried waiting, taking the tiny dose of naltrexone when I was feeling high from the Percocet. That seemed to work better. Yay! I got relief from the Percocet and from my own internally produced painkillers. That was useful because OMG was this surgery painful.

Was I worried about taking oxycodone?

No.

A few days of opioids won’t cause the ravages of physical dependence I had to undo after I took opioids everyday for years.

I needed the heavy pain meds only for the first few days after my luxe operation, taking less each day, as expected. I had no symptoms of opiate withdrawal when I stopped.

Patients Can Be Trusted

Of course, the outright drug dealing by crooked doctors (read American Pain) and pharmacy chains created addicts, death by overdose and a terrible burden to communities

But the fact is, about 90% of patients stop taking their opioid pain medication after surgery as expected, as reported in a recent study.

Most of us can figure out, this sure is a nice high, but I have a life I need to attend to.

Millennials (18% of them) are most at risk for continuing to use opioids after they should have stopped. Probably because they were raised to think self-esteem and feelings matter, that others owe you approval and acceptance. What a shame. Only opioids can love you like that, kids. And that’s dangerous.

My advice to millennials? Just f*cking accept yourself and get on with things.

Rapid Healing

To heal fast and properly, I upped my injections of Ascor to 4 shots per day. This totaled 3 grams of ascorbic acid.

Vitamin C is needed for tissue repair.

It also reduces inflammation and pain.

Because I inject Ascor, I am no longer disabled by Ehlers-Danlos. But you know that because you read my blog.

I’m doing so well with daily Ascor injecting, I could pass for normal, except I’m much more youthful-looking, flexible, and, well, beautiful than a normal person. So we know I still have EDS.

After a few days of four shots, I was sick of the burn from them. So I went down to 3 shots per day, totaling 2.25 grams.

I stuck with the 3 shots per day for a couple weeks after surgery. Then I went down to 2 shots for a stretch. Then back to just one, my usual, 750 mg.

I always do more shots if I’m very sore from exercise, feel like I’m getting sick or injured. A body needs more Vitamin C in such cases.

Most mammals manufacture their own ascorbic acid internally, on-demand. But in a cruel trick of nature, humans, chimpanzees and guinea pigs have a broken copy of that gene. We must eat Vitamin C.

Apparently I need to inject it to benefit because I possess a broken collagen gene. Discovered this quite accidentally. Send the honorary medical degree to less flexible at gmail dot com. Thanks.

I healed very well, right on track with collagen-typicals. Yay!

Happy Holidays, with Health and Healing. ❤️

This post makes it sound like I just do whatever I want with drugs. That is not the case. I am supervised by my primary care doctors who is a total sweet pie.