You can read my transplant story for the back story. However, when you first come back to the ICU room they don't ask if you want pain meds, you are just given them and you need them. They took me off the heavy ones in a couple of days, because I wasn't asking for meds very often. I would ask for meds before physical therapy and then go and do what I was allowed to do. I kept pushing myself to walk, to climb stairs anything that I could. I still needed Tylenol when I came home. However, now a little over a year later, I still have some discomfort but don't take anything for it. I would have been dead by now without my transplant, so it is well worth any discomfort. I have had worse pain when I twisted my spine in an accident. At that time, I would actually be in so much pain that I would be throwing up, which I consider a level 9. Nothing like that after the transplant. The worst it got was a level 8 and that is because I don't like to take drugs, so I would hold off as long as I could. The hospital that I went to monitored your pain and would check in with me often to see if I needed anything. Then when I did they would give it to me as quickly as they could. Everyone's pain level is different though.