I had this proceedure done 2 weeks and 3 days ago and I spent some time on this forum and others reading about it. So, needless to say I was scared to death to do it. I went for the old scalpel and stitches method as it has the best by far the best success rate (only about 5% recurrance) and had all 3 veins removed. I was fortunate to find a doctor with 30+ years experience and followed his advice on recovery which has seemed to work better than most of the other posts I read on this so I thought I would share and maybe help someone else out.
First-I am not completely recovered, but I now have BMs every day without pain and do not have to take any painkillers to be pain free all day. I am still a bit weak from laying around for over a week but my arse feels better than it has in years...I suffered with these things for over 15 years and the doc said after surgury it was one of the worst cases he has removed. This was his recovery advice:
Eat every day (high fiber) to strive to have a BM regularly and soon after surgury. This goes against instincts-but there is no way to avoid the pain anyway. After this proceedure the anus wants to tighten as it scars, so prolonging the passing of formed stool lengthens the time you will expereince pain. My pain was as bad as you hear, but only for the first week. The big stools stretch your wounds out but in the long run it healed actually quicker. Only 2 weeks post op I no longer had bleeding or painful BMs. The only thing I still struggle with is slight leakage for a few hours post BM (I have to go back every 30 minutes or so and rewipe). So I will say getting my bowels moving at regular intervals (every morning) was the key to my recovery. Painkillers (I took perkocet, demerol, and dilotid) can't stop the poo if you eat a mostly fiber diet. I ate only fruit, oatmeal, cooked veggies, egg noodles, and a little chicken every day.
Another thing I struggled with was peeing. After each morning BM I could not pee to save my life. The bladder cramping combined with the pain was too much to bear. The Dr got me some Valium and it IMMEDIATELY solved the problem. until about day 9 I got up at 6am and medicated up with perkocet and valium, went back to sleep for a couple hours and then got up to go to the bathroom around 8. This worked the best for controlling the pain and with the valium I could pee right away. The only thing I would have done differently is get the valium ahead of time.
I hope this helps someone, as I put this off too long due to reading the posts for the last few years and I am now very happy I went thru with it.
First-I am not completely recovered, but I now have BMs every day without pain and do not have to take any painkillers to be pain free all day. I am still a bit weak from laying around for over a week but my arse feels better than it has in years...I suffered with these things for over 15 years and the doc said after surgury it was one of the worst cases he has removed. This was his recovery advice:
Eat every day (high fiber) to strive to have a BM regularly and soon after surgury. This goes against instincts-but there is no way to avoid the pain anyway. After this proceedure the anus wants to tighten as it scars, so prolonging the passing of formed stool lengthens the time you will expereince pain. My pain was as bad as you hear, but only for the first week. The big stools stretch your wounds out but in the long run it healed actually quicker. Only 2 weeks post op I no longer had bleeding or painful BMs. The only thing I still struggle with is slight leakage for a few hours post BM (I have to go back every 30 minutes or so and rewipe). So I will say getting my bowels moving at regular intervals (every morning) was the key to my recovery. Painkillers (I took perkocet, demerol, and dilotid) can't stop the poo if you eat a mostly fiber diet. I ate only fruit, oatmeal, cooked veggies, egg noodles, and a little chicken every day.
Another thing I struggled with was peeing. After each morning BM I could not pee to save my life. The bladder cramping combined with the pain was too much to bear. The Dr got me some Valium and it IMMEDIATELY solved the problem. until about day 9 I got up at 6am and medicated up with perkocet and valium, went back to sleep for a couple hours and then got up to go to the bathroom around 8. This worked the best for controlling the pain and with the valium I could pee right away. The only thing I would have done differently is get the valium ahead of time.
I hope this helps someone, as I put this off too long due to reading the posts for the last few years and I am now very happy I went thru with it.