Pain Outcomes of Intra-operative IV Tylenol and/or IV Toradol for Carpal Tunnel and Distal Radius Fracture Surgeries

The study population will include patients presenting for surgery with carpal tunnel syndrome as well as surgical treatment of distal radius fracture. Patients will be treated intra-operatively with either IV tylenol, IV toradol, both, or neither. All patients will receive the standard post-operative prescriptions for pain management. Daily pain surveys scoring pain from 0-10 will be distributed to the subjects to be filled out over the course of 10 days prior to first post-operative visit, usually 10-14 days later. Number of pain pills used before the first post-operative visit will also be measured.

We hypothesize that the effects of intra-operative administration of IV tylenol and/or IV toradol will have a significant effect on decreasing post-operative pain in the first 10 days following distal radius fracture surgeries, with a significant difference in pain described as at least a 2 points on a 0-10 pain scale.

We also hypothesize that intra-operative administration of IV tylenol and/or IV toradol will not have such significant effect on decreasing post-operative pain for carpal tunnel release surgery.

A secondary aim is to evaluate the post-operative opioid consumption of patients within these treatment groups. We hypothesize that opioid consumption will be decreased in the groups receiving IV tylenol and/or toradol for distal radius fracture surgery compared to the placebo group. We do not expect such a difference for the carpal tunnel release surgery group.

Inclusion criteria

• carpal tunnel release surgery candidates,
• distal radius fracture surgery candidates

Exclusion criteria

• under 18 years of age,
• pregnant women,
• prisoners