Haematoma in abdominal wall

I had a vaginal hysterectomy on May 19th. I had internal bleeding that they did not catch until the next day. My blood count was down to 4.8 and I received 3 pints of blood. I now have a large haematoma in my abdominal wall. The ct scan shows that it is not actively bleeding, and does not appear to be infected. It hurts even to touch my skin. It is a little bigger than a baseball but more oblong, and tends to change shape. It is painful when I urinate and I have to waddle when I walk. The doctor said it is up to me whether or not I want her to open the incision and clean it out or let it stay in there and get absorbed. It is too hard at this point to drain with a needle. Does anyone know how long it takes to absorb these things? If it's a few weeks I can live with it, but I don't think I can do months. I'm more inclined to have her open the incision and clean it out, (Even though I really don't want surgery again.), but I'm not sure that's the best thing to do. Thanks for eveyone who shares on this site. I've found more info. here than anywhere on the internet!

Caretaker,

I am sorry you are having such a tough recovery. I haven't personally had one but I found quite a few posts by ladies that have. If you just type in "hematoma" on the upper right side of this page, and hit Google Search (hystersisters box automatically checked) you will find them all. Here's one that I found that contains some personal experience in it:

https://www.hystersisters.com/vb2/sho...d.php?t=348325

I hope you start feeling better soon!

Hi LookingforaSis,

Thank you so much for your reply. From what I've read it seems that it takes quite a long time for these things to heal. Sometimes months. Since it seems to be interfearing so much with my healing in general we've decided to go in and clean it out. Hopefully that will go well. As of now I have pain when I go to the bathroom, when I sleep and any amount of pressure on my abdomen is painful. Even wearing pants hurt. I feel like if it were not for this haematoma I would be fine to even go back to work. I just hope I don't make things worse by allowing the Dr. to go back in.

I love this website! It helps so much to read the posts and know that I am not alone in all of the wierd things that are going on.

Caretaker. It sounds like you have a good plan of action. Hopefully you can get this resolved and continue on to a pain free path of healing.

Take care &

Correction: My Hysterectomy was abdominal. I had a large fibroid behind my uterus that they could not get to vaginally. I must have been thinking about something else when I wrote that. Anyway, for all of you out there with haematomas, I am 4 weeks and 4 days along and just today I am seeing some slight improvement. My body is finally starting to absorb this stuff. Surgery has been postponed for a little while to see if I can just absorb all of it. The strainge thing from what I have been reading from everyone else, is that my haematoma has not drained at all. It is just sitting in the wall of my abdomen. I'll keep psoting as I go through this so in the future maybe someone who experiences this will maybe have some kind of time frame of what to expect, Knowing that everyone is different of course. It has really helped me to read all of the posts, so hopefully I can help someone else.