wondering

I was wondering I keep hearing about gas pains,do they use gas when you have a tvh?I also hear alot of people talking about how great they felt with in a couple days is this all true?I also want to know which is better spinal or general,I told them I wanted spinal but now I am thinking of calling them and telling them I want general.If everyone feels so great so fast why does the doc say it could take up to six weeks to completey recover?

I know they use the gas during lapro type surgeries, I had it with my colon surgery.

I'm not sure about your other questions, but others will be able to help you with those.

It takes a long time for your insides to heal.. from nerves being cut and muscles too. So many things were removed and stitched or cauterized, so they need to heal. Internal healing takes way longer than external healing...like a cut.
I had bowel gas with my TAH....Your intestines get paralyzed due to anesthesia and have to wake up afterwards. Thats why you get gas. I know you get gas for laproscopic surgeries, but i didnt and i still had gas issues up into my shoulder and under my rib cage.

I had a SAH, and I had gas pain. But not the same kind of gas pain that comes from the gas they use to inflate your tummy. Mine was just from getting the bowels moving again.

You have hundreds of stitches internally that is why it take so long to heal. I am still having trouble with tiredness (I have really increased my activity lately, and now an paying for it) I also had my bowel and ovary stuck to my abdomen wall, so I had tons of stitches there also (which is still healing)

Hi, I know that my Doc told me not to even lift a gallon of milk before my 2 wk post-op. He said when you lift even the smallest of things you use a lot of abdominal muscles and when those are cut on and stitched on they could easily tear when you lift something too heavy or do something too soon! Hope this helps! =0)

Hi. People do recover at different rates for lots of reasons including the type and extent of surgery and whether you have any complications during surgery or post-op. It seems lots of people take a good 6 weeks to recover from the acute stage but you may also experience swelly belly or tiredness for several months. The mantra on the site is just because you can do something doesn't mean you should and you only have one opportunity to recover well (so you should definitely give yourself lots of time to heal.) All the best with your surgery.

Hi Zombiefan,

I had a TVH with spinal anesthesia.

As had been said by others, the gas pain is that within your intestines. Feeling better is relative, since the gas pains can be some of the worse pains, though they tend to pass (sometimes litterally) relatively quickly. They aggrivate an area which is quite sore internally. Be sure to NOT eat things which can give you gas or spicy things a couple days befoer surgery.

Italydream said it when it comes to healing.

On the spinal, though I had very rare complications due to the spinal I had, I would still do it again. I had pain during surgery which was quickly taken care of and a spinal headache for a week after surgery, a less than 1% occurance. Other women who had a spinal had no problems with it and loved it. If you do a search on spinal anesthesia, you may find that thread, or start your own with that as a question. I would still have a spinal if I had to do it again.

Take stairs slowely, especially going down (there's a recent thread for that also) and you should be fine.

Best wishes for your surgery and recovery - Joanne

I don't think you can get a spinal on any type of surgery where they have to put gas inside you but I'm not sure about whether they do that with a TVH or not.

On a side note, I had the daVinci robot TLH and they use gas. I have had gas and I still have gas a week out but it is just annoying, not really painful except on occassion and I never had problems with gas in my shoulder. I know some people do but some people don't have those same problems with it.

I thought a lot about all the what-if's before surgery and in the end it wasn't no where near as bad as I expected.

Good luck with yours.

My DR told me that they have to move your intestines out of the way when they do surgery and because they were messing with them (moving them) it causes gas to form inside them and that's where the gas pain comes from.