Pain the day after surgery

Hi Sisters,
I'm having a hysterectomy June 6th. I think it will be Minimally invasive. They are going to take the ovaries, uterus and cervix. Can anyone tell me what the pain is like for the first and second day? I'm a big chicken.
Thank you,
Bigchicken

Hi Bigchicken. I had at TAH/BSO. I had a spinal anesthesia with an On Q pain system so I was in "NO" pain for a few days. After that, yeah it's painful and it's hard to get comfortable but with pain medication it's not all that bad. I had a vertical incision and thought that the pain was less than my 4 c-sections and my laproscopic gall bladder surgery. I was expecting alot more pain. I'm three weeks now and feeling pretty good. The waiting was the worse. I think the most important thing for you is to line up help because the first week you'll need somebody. It's a natural feeling to feel like a chicken...I did and now I look back and think....geez, it really wasn't that bad. Good Luck!

I don't remember much about the pain. They had a drip pumping meds into it for the first couple days and gave me IV pain killers.

The worst for me was walking, I kept having a sharp stabbing pain on my left side. It was awful, thankfully DH was there to talk me into walking back to the room, I was ready to camp out on the floor in the hallway! The pain went away with meds and by the 2nd day I could walk w/o the pain.

They will try to keep you as pain free as possible.

the first day of my surgery (lap assisted vaginal) I pressed the pain pump only three times..and mostly because I had mild discomfort and wanted to sleep..by the second day I had no pain...and only mild discomfort that I managed with Advil... I hope your recovery will go as well as mine...I felt great the day after and have felt great ever since....I just get tired very easily. I was so scared the week before my surgery that I talked about cancelling.... now I wonder what all the fuss was about...it was sooo easy. I'll send good thoughts your way that yours will be easy as well.

Of course, no one can really tell you what your pain is going to be like. We don't have any idea what's really going to be done in your procedure, and you perceive pain in your very own way.

Be assured, though, that the folks will do their best to get your discomfort under control.

And for what it's worth, here's a little trick I tried on myself before surgery. Instead of thinking to myself, "I just KNOW I'm going to wake up in terrible pain" (which of course I didn't know at all for sure ) I thought to myself, "Just think -- in a week, I'll be home and recovering." Instead of "What's it going to be like trying to go to the bathroom?" I said to myself, "In only 7 weeks I'll be back at work!" In other words, I focused on things much further out in the future. The idea is that you really can't do much about how much pain you experience right after surgery -- it's either bad or it isn't. (For the record, I had lots of pain after my TAH/panniculectomy...I won't lie. But I got through it, and the hospital staff did a great job getting me comfortable . In contrast to that, after my hematoma surgery in 2005, I was up walking the halls, feeling relatively "wonderful" just a few hours after getting out of recovery! So there's no way to accurately predict how you'll do immediately after surgery. )

I don't know if I've helped you any. As hard as this is, try not to focus on the immediate post-op period. It probably won't be too bad, and if it is -- you'll have a good team on hand to help you through it.