Hello

I am a 41 year old female, 5’10”, 158 lb, fit and healthy who was in a pretty spectacular horse riding accident. I was on a 1300 pound quarter horse (so short and STOCKY) when the horse reared up, flipped over backwards and landed with me directly underneath her. I was pinned with her struggling to get up for a few minutes before being pulled clear (the horse had dazed herself and could not get up).

This resulted in a fractured left pelvis, broken Sacrum and broken coccyx.

Three surgeries were performed. The initial emergency surgery to stop internal bleeding, check bladder/uterus for damage, inspect fracture, install stabilizing rods and install bar for leg traction (attached to femur). 3-5 hours surgery.

Second surgery was first attempt to plate/screw pelvis together- this turned out to be difficult as I have an unusually small pelvic loop. 11 hours under. A third surgery was highly expected as there was a small chance this would not hold.

Unfortunately I experienced extreme muscle spasms about 24 hours after the surgery and yup my pelvis snapped apart like a wishbone. The third surgery was a joint Orthopedic and Neurology effort, my pelvis was put back together by ortho, brackets and screws were placed on L4-S1 for a Limbopelvic fixation by Neuro. 12 hours under for surgery. And finally success!

The first week was hell trying to figure out pain management. My mom’s side of the family has an extremely high tolerance to Morphine and it’s buddies. Dilaudid stopped working directly after second surgery. They gave me a self dosing machine, I dosed every 10 minutes and it didn’t even make me drowsy. OxyContin (or Oxycodine) works really well but only lasts three hours.

I am now 11 days post surgery. My main pain epicenters are: buttocks from prolonged sitting (left especially), spinal suture throbbing (also from prolonged sitting) and nerve pain down left leg (the nerves are not damaged, more like they went into shock and are now waking up so I am in the EXTREME pins and needles/leg is on fire/foot constantly swelling and throbbing stage). This pain can be bad enough to make me cry and I’ve spent my life falling from horses, being kicked/bit/stomped on by horses and carrying on with my day. I’m still on the Oxy, without a second breakthrough med, but need it at regular intervals or I’m in extreme pain. At night I have to do every three hours, during the day I can stretch as I spend more time out of bed doing therapy and practicing the wheel chair. Plus activities and visitors to distract me.

I keep getting diverging reactions to whether my pain level and amount of oxygen taken is normal. Some nurses/doctors are shocked I’m not on more meds and others keep trying to expand the time between the oxy (especially at night) and don’t believe me when I say that only creates a losing game of pain catch up.

So my question is: is it normal to still have extreme pain 11 days out? Or am I just not as strong as I thought?  
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Pain level after 1300 lb crush accident and 26 hours of surgery?