Pain Medication (post-operative)

My son will have to have orthopedic surgery. In previous surgeries he has responded poorly to codeine by becoming agitated and to morphine by staying up all night. Do you have any suggestions for postoperative pain medication to which he may respond more favorably?

My suggestion would be to utilize an epidural infusion of local anesthetic in the immediate postoperative period. The epidural catheter can be placed in the operating room after the patient is asleep. This should limit the amount of postoperative pain medications that he would need.

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