They will be testing me soon for pain med reaction, we went through 3 or 4 changes and the vertigo was the most tolerable. Ankle surgery changed my life. I’m sure we both had different needs from the surgery, but ankles are such a pivotal and underrated part of the body. I hope your surgery will turn out to be as positively life changing! 
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I have been trying for pain tolerable, If I ever got pain free I would think I had died. or lost a set of nerves. I got myself addicted to the morphine the first time and did not find it helping. This was the old Tucson Hospital in july and they did not have air conditioning, just a fan in the open window. (I was about 15 at that time) More recently they chopped off the ankle and stuck it back on with a metal plate and hospitals were a different universe.
When I got to college I learned why. (the short version) Each nerve receptor has a number of connections and the opiates poison the connections. the body finds that there are not enough receptors and so makes more of them and the pain goes to normal, but then the opiates wear off and you feel more pain than if you had never taken them. I felt this effect long before I knew the cause and would get off the morphine as soon as I was coherent enough to ask.
In short I would be looking for the amount you can do and still tolerate the pain level rather than avoiding it. I really do hope you can reach the point of pain free but I also hope that if and when you get there you will hardly notice. It does help set priorities knowing that the pain will increase and deciding if the goal is worth the pain.
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Good advice! (Alcohol does that, too…and benzos, which are basically alcohol in pill form.)
And I’m sorry about your pain. Chronic pain is so wearing, I hate seeing people just have to live with constant, inadequately treated pain. 
I’ve been pretty fortunate, really. This is the first time I’ve needed to use opiates, and I was already pretty used to my ankles hurting (although granted with a different quality of pain!) so it hasn’t really taken a lot to manage it. I’m already going 2-3 days between pills, just using ice and elevation to manage it…although I had to give in and take one last night because having all the stitches pulled yesterday seems to have made the incisions angry, and they’re taking turns suddenly shooting stabbing sensations up my leg, argh! It should calm down pretty quickly, though. (That’s what I’m telling myself!) 
I’ve been doing a little more every day, trying to balance between doing “enough” and “too much.” I still want to think I can recover like a 20-year-old, despite how long it’s been since I actually WAS one!
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When I was 20 something I misjudged the depth of the water straightening my legs looking for the bottom and finding it just as my leg was straight. it bent at the knee but in the direction of the other leg rather than front to back. After a couple of years I thought it had healed but I am walking in the yard 35ish years later and it gave way and dumped me on my face and has been unreliable ever since. More a mechanical issue at first I started to carry a cane to catch myself, but riding a cruise ship the engine vibration forced me to the top deck and mostly sitting down even then.
I have lived longer than any of my direct male ancestors and chemically very healthy but the mechanical bits were never great, and not getting better but none of it life threatening as it has been for way too many friends.
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Hubs did something like that (only it involved squeaky new shoes and a basketball court) and ended up having to get a new knee 40-some years later.
He’s been VERY happy with the new knee. No more pain, and it never collapses sideways unexpectedly like the old one did. 
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That tile frame design is a winner! You are so creative.
And kitties and lasers go best together!
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I have had discussions of that, but now it is both knees and both ankles depending on the day and as often as not it is the back that is worst (I also fell off a ladder and landed on my back on the front steps). Of all the things I have done it is the power chair that addresses the most issues, and lets me save the pain buildup for when walking is really needed.
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You should ask; they’re really good at the knees now, and I have yet to meet anyone who regrets doing it.
And NO MORE FALLING! Find somebody else to go up ladders for you. Once you get past 50 or so, falling is BAD. It’s always bad, really, but the older you get the more significantly bad it is!
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I have sworn off ladders for the duration. The damaged left leg cannot support anything when bent and the right leg has limited ability to lift very far as needed for a ladder. The last time I went up one to replace a light bulb and could not get down without deliberately falling even though the ladder was stable.
Also, any bionics need to be custom made as there is no place where my bones fit the range of normal. Even Tibia and Fibia are just one bone in my case.
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They have to custom make them to match your bones, so I wouldn’t think that would be an obstacle.
My ankle issue is actually due to congenitally fused bones / missing joints. Maybe we’re related! 
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Have you checked for MHE My mother and grandmother had very few symptoms and as it is autosomal dominant there are usually minor symptoms. There are by comparison very few of us that hit the jackpot with hundreds or thousands of joint issues. The metabolic effects are also tied to some Autism spectrum issues that often express as full on geek.
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That’s inspirational! I hope you feel better. Love the cat collar!
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Oh, wow, new rabbit hole!!! I had not heard of that one, I’ve got some reading to do.
Mine was a congenital issue, not something that developed later. None of my kids inherited it, thankfully, and none of my brothers have it, so I don’t think it’s genetic, just something that went wonky in utero when my ankles were developing.
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I’m with you. Ruptured a disc at 20, took them 3 years to find it (workmans comp…) irreparable (sp) nerve damage and chronic pain. Did the opiate run and quit when I figured it out. Doctors were/are so quick to write a script.
Fast forward 30 years later, more broken bones (motorcycle 
) Join the Police Dept and have to do the academy with 20+ year olds. I won 
they did’nt beat the old man.
Pain is like background noise, something I’m aware of but it takes a lot now to get above it. But when it does, oh boy!!!
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Wait until you realize you can predict the weather (or at least a low pressure system coming in) I always thought that was a joke until it happened to me. Actually it’s been years since I could do that, so I must be healed.
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In high school I went out for basketball and ended up in the hospital. Recovered from that and went out for tennis… and ended up in the hospital. Went out for swim team… and ended up in the hospital, each time there was new ways the exercises aggravated a place like rubbing or pinching a place over and over. a few times is hardly noticed but eventually it swells and that makes it worse and turns into a feedback loop.
One rough semester in college and the Army comes calling so my father sends a pile of documentation 6" tall, so while the doctors were impressed with the volume and official look, they had never heard of the disease, so after I explain that boot camp would have the same result as basket ball and a life of medical discharge from boot camp would be painful but profitable they looked deeper and someone remembered that the hands were unusual , so after I touched my finger backwards to the arm, instead of making it a 4-F it was basically that I would get called up if the much later movie Red Dawn had happened as they expected.
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I can’t predict, yet, but I can tell when the weather changes without looking outside. I have an inner ear disorder that lets me know when the barometric pressure changes. Rainy to sunny is the worst. 
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I have a cat named Pixel too! 
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I have a phone named Pixel Two 
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Oh, this one wins for the day! 
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