MEDICATIONS & PRESCRIPTIONS

PRIOR TO SURGERY

Our policy is to defer to your primary physician or other referring provider prior to any surgery. We will generally not prescribe any medications prior your having surgery with us.

POSTOPERATIVE MEDICATIONS

You will generally continue all your pre-operative medicines after discharge, unless specifically told to do otherwise. There are some important exceptions to this.

• Any patient who has undergone a fusion will be asked to not take any medications containing anti-inflammatories such as aspirin, ibuprofren (Motrin, Advil, Excedrin), naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn) and Celebrex. These drugs inhibit bone healing and fusion. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is fine to take in this regard.

• If you take one aspirin a day for cardiac reasons, you may be able to resume this in general 5 days after surgery, unless specifically asked not to do so.

• There may be some adjustments made to your usual medications while in hospital, but these will be specified on your discharge instructions. If these are pain medicines, discuss these changes with our clinicians at your follow-up visit, but if they are other medicines, such as blood pressure or diabetes medications, discuss these with your primary physician or appropriate specialist as soon as possible.

REFILLS

Narcotic pain medications require a physical prescription to be filled by a pharmacy, or a secure electronic prescription. These cannot be faxed by law. To ensure that you are not left without pain medications, please contact the office at least 5 business days before you run out of medications to provide enough time for a new prescription to be sent electronically to your pharmacy, or a physical copy sent to you.

Most other medications can be refilled by fax, but we still ask that you provide at least 5 days notice as our clinicians may be in surgery, at another hospital, or out of town preventing the request from being dealt with immediately.