@layingthegroundwork
I wonder why you didn’t take two acetaminophen pills for pain. I started taking two 500 mg acetaminophen pills the second day. That was all I needed, and I really didn’t feel any pain at all, at the most a slight discomfort. Taking only one pill was way below the standard dosage and not really designed to help pain in an adult.

There is a standard dosage of 1000 mg every six hours. You might not have needed the lidocaine patches.

I never had to worry about what I was eating, Nothing seemed to bother me at all. I wasn’t drinking tea. I was drinking mainly water however. It could be the standard dose of acetaminophen resolved the eating issues.