Expectations after hyst for chronic pain-too much, too soon?

Hi to all: As anyone reading my posts knows, my worst problem (and fear of it continuing) has been is constant cramping. So you can imagine my distress when, after experiencing minimal/easily controlled pain and almost zero bleeding in my first two weeks post-op, I'm now having what looks and, more worrisome to me, feels like a period.

The cramps are, I'm happy to say, not the wall-climbers I walked into the OR with. They are more like a general tightness across my belly. The doctor and I discussed this symptom prior to the surgery, when the paracervical blocks he administered (when trying to determine if the pain was mostly uterine) relieved the deep internal cramping but not this same external tightness I'm having now. He said I might need PT for it. I'd have to mull that over. My experiences with pelvic PT were pure torment, and no wonder; the therapists were pounding away at a uterus with a major fibroid!

The bottom line is, I'm confused. I can't distinguish among healing pain, healing-with-some-bleeding-and-crampiness, and signs that I'll still have chronic pain post-hyst. After all, expecting five years of severe pain to vanish in a matter of days may be a tad unrealistic. It's just that, because the operation was such a success, everyone expects an instant return of my energy and productivity and for me to be able to flush my pain meds away! I don't feel anywhere near ready for that step yet, nor much of anything , to be honest.

So from someone who has gone through a hyst for chronic pain, how long should I give myself before becoming discouraged, and is there anything apart from the usual recovery instructions to do or avoid?

Thanks for all your help!

Hannah

By week 5 the pain was very minimal.
It seems for me the first 4 weeks I had alot of pain but my dr was very generous with pain pills and I took took them. So the only time I felt pain is when I forgot to take the morphine. I had 15 mg ms conton plus regular 15 mg morpine to take along with the slow release. I am a strong believer that we shouldnt have to suffer.
I quit taking pain pills at 3 weeks but resumed at week 4.
One day it wont hurt so bad then the next day is a bad day. Week 3 was the most uncomfortable for me. My belly itched and my insides felt like someone carlessly pulled them and and tossed them back in.
I hope you stop hurting soon. I had a chronic back ache for months before my surgury and now I feel reborn!

I can relate to your post. I had a great deal of pain before surgery, too -- never really thought of it as chronic, but I suppose it was.

After my surgery, I guess that the thing that struck me the most (other than the obvious lack of heavy bleeding) was that I didn't feel all that much better than before surgery. I felt like I had non-ending swelly belly, and the healing pain never stopped.

It turned out I had a complication which I let go simply because I thought I was healing slowly, and I also thought it was just time I stopped complaining. (I had a very large hematoma along my incision which was adhered to my abdominal wall.)

I'm certainly not suggesting that there's anything seriously wrong, but I am suggesting that you not just let this go. There may very well be something going on which needs additional treatment. Or maybe you are going to have chronic pain...if so, the doctors need to help you start dealing with it now.

I hope you feel better soon. Sending healing thoughts your way.

Hannah, you are only 2 1/2 weeks out from surgery. Please give yourself some time to heal. I would definitely check in with your Dr to make sure that the pain you are experiencing is within the normal limits of healing. It sounds like you have been dealing with pain for quite a while. I did not have severe pain before the surgery but have been experiencing abdominal pain daily since the surgery. At first I thought it was part of the healing process but the further out I got into recovery the worse it became. Dealing with it has been difficult, depressing and limiting but at the same time, familiar. I have been grumbling, complaining and whining about it. I finally decided that I need to do something about it and have started some alternative treatments to try to alleviate the pain. The first few days I thought "Ha! This isn't working, nothing is going to make this pain go away." But there have been some improvements, they have been small. The pain isn't quite as sharp and there have actually been times that the pain is gone for a short while, where I had constant pain before. But in the back of my head I keep thinking it will get worse again. Why? Because I've been carrying it around so long I don't know what it's like to feel good anymore. I guess what I'm trying to say is we have to change our thinking and become more positive and believe we are going to be pain free. Do I think you should be ready to toss your pain meds? No. But I think you need to give it more time and not think you are doomed to live a life filled with chronic pain. The mind is a powerful thing and the more positively we can look at things the brighter the outcome. Here's wishing for better days for the both of us!!
Michelle