Recovery Progress Reports for Hysterectomy dates Apr 09-Apr 15,2012

Has anyone found the trick to fall asleep...and stay asleep? Need sleep! Hoping when I get back to working tons of hours, everything gets back to normal. I'm at 4 weeks tomorrow...but still have 2 weeks until I get back to work. I just want one great night of sleep! Any advice? Is anyone really sleeping ok?

	Quote:
Originally Posted by michele407 Has anyone found the trick to fall asleep...and stay asleep? Need sleep! Hoping when I get back to working tons of hours, everything gets back to normal. I'm at 4 weeks tomorrow...but still have 2 weeks until I get back to work. I just want one great night of sleep! Any advice? Is anyone really sleeping ok?

I too feel your pain! Just one decent night would be awesome! I will be 4wks on Tuesday and was a great sleeper pre surgery so find it very frustrating indeed!!

	Quote:
Originally Posted by ajone67 I too feel your pain! Just one decent night would be awesome! I will be 4wks on Tuesday and was a great sleeper pre surgery so find it very frustrating indeed!!

I'm Sorry your not sleeping either. I'm just so tired. At first my mentality was...oh well its not like I have to work tomorrow...but now I'm hating bedtime. Lol. I'm super comfortable...and then I lay there...all night! Lol here's to another evening...good luck to you

	Quote:
Originally Posted by michele407 I'm Sorry your not sleeping either. I'm just so tired. At first my mentality was...oh well its not like I have to work tomorrow...but now I'm hating bedtime. Lol. I'm super comfortable...and then I lay there...all night! Lol here's to another evening...good luck to you

I know!! But now with 2wks left I am getting worried I wont ever sleep properly again! And I am not napping in the daytime so thats not the problem. If I find the sleep magic I will post here! I sit and wait for bedtime to come cause thats another day over with but then I want to cry when I lay down cause I know I wont sleep!! Vicious circle!!

Michelle407, ajone67 - White noise worked for me finally. I had the TV really low and it finally allowed my mind to relax enough to go to sleep. Now I don't really need it.

Sleep has been such a mixed bag - and to top it off I feel a little embarrassed to admit I have taken to sleeping with the hall light on; like I am some 5 year old afraid of the boogey man. I can't explain why, I just can't have a pitch black room. Turning a fan on seems to help (white noise), but staying asleep is another matter. I reach for the iPad most nights, spend a few hours poking about, then get another hour right before I have to get up. I do nap every now and then, so that adds to my restless nights. completely agree it is a vicious circle. Good luck and wish you a good nights rest soon.

Well today I am 3 wks 5 days post op. Feeling a lot better as far as the pelvic area but I have back pain now. I had already been living with back pain but after my surgery it was suddenly gone. But unfortunately it is now back.

My only issue right now are my incisions. They are ugly and red with little bumps all around them. My Dr called in an antibiotic that I've taken twice and threw up once. The itching is what really is driving me crazy. If I could get over this hump I'd feel almost 85% at least. They weep all the time and this is just not what I expected to happen. Other than that I feel totally good. Not having to do the Miralax daily anymore just some times and gas x sometimes if my belly gets too bloated. Hope everyone is healing nicely!!

Some thoughts... about six years ago I had to have a cancerous mole removed from my cheek. The surgeon (an excellent plastic surgeon as you have to look hard to see the scars) told me that I would experience some jabs of pain in my cheek as the nerves woke up, reasserted themselves and made new connections. I think there's a good chance that some of the sharp pains we feel on the inside might be something similar? If so, it's a good thing, I think, and I will ask the doc about it on my next visit. This same surgeon also had me massaging the incision/stitch area once they were mostly healed... index and middle finger only in a clockwise circular motion... because it kind of breaks up the scar tissue so you don't get that hard lump under the incision site. I've been doing that on my Da Vinci incisions and have noticed it works there, too.

Does anyone else have a heated mattress pad and are using it? It seems to help me in several ways. About a week after the surgery, my left hip, which had been a bit achy, suddenly started really hurting. I started taking a couple of Tylenol about half an hour before I'm going to lay down and turn the mattress pad on. It took about four nights in a row, but my hip feels fine now. I also think the heat helped with the internal healing, too, because the general internal ache is gone, too.

	Quote:
Originally Posted by michele407 Has anyone found the trick to fall asleep...and stay asleep? Need sleep! Hoping when I get back to working tons of hours, everything gets back to normal. I'm at 4 weeks tomorrow...but still have 2 weeks until I get back to work. I just want one great night of sleep! Any advice? Is anyone really sleeping ok?

Hi Sisters,

I am not really sleeping ok, either. I'm perplexed with the whole sleep thing lately. This coming Tuesday will be 4 weeks from my TAH, and I'm planning to work from home for the next couple or few weeks starting on Wednesday (my doctor's okayed this) until I am ready to physically make the long trek (52 miles one way) into the office every day. Therefore, I hope to be able to get the sleep issue under better control very soon.

I had some chamomile tea over 4 hours ago since I thought it would help. The progestin I have been prescribed often has a drowsiness side effect and my doc and pharmacy said to take it before bed, but it has no such drowsiness effect on me.

Once I am no longer working remotely and physically go back to the office as the new, improved me, I am not going to let myself work a zillion hours per week for several weeks or months (depending on how I feel). I know I will be tired, so my health will now come first. Post-hysterectomy, there will be no more ignoring my personal needs or staying up nearly all night long in order to accommodate poor planning on the part of someone or something else. My mental preparation for my return to work may have some connection to my current sleep issues, and that preparation appears to need a bit of fine-tuning. I'm about to flip that "switch" very soon. I also plan to implement my new planned work/sleep schedule tomorrow and to absolutely stick to a reasonably early bedtime and associated routine.

Good healing to all of you, Sisters! We are all much tougher and stronger than major abdominal surgery, and we will all be absolutely terrific soon!