Recovery Time For Hemorrhoid Surgery

I had my hemorrhoid surgery on the 4/11/11 , yes my first BM was painfull didnt have much of mass come out i would say only five small droppings so to speak, i have read all the posts here they were helpful but what i found the easiest way for me to have a less painful BM is to drink a glass of %100 prune juice  , you will have diarrhea as a result of it and thats why its not so painfull and after that i feel like i have flushed all my stools from me  .

Anyway on the long run of keeping on using the prune juice is that like OK ?, will I be messing my digestive system ? , am I going to be dependent on this kind of method to have my BM all the time ?


what I found on prune juice on the internet

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I had my surgery end of September. I practice yoga (vinyasa and bikram) everyday and didn’t return until 4 months after.

I’m all better. But to be honest, I haven’t put more fiber in my diet like I should have. Otherwise, the pain post op stayed with me for a good 2 months. But no more.

 

Get well soon everyone!

I had my surgery on 04/18/2011 - had 5 external hems removed and a polop.  For those who are unaware - the externals also involve internal work as well as they are basically extensions of internal hems that have gotten so large that they are showing externally.  To say the least I was a mess!  The procedure took all of 45 minutes to complete but I was not able to leave until I could urinate.  That took another hour!  I went home with the typical scripts of Toradol and percocet (cannot take vicodin).  Also told to get Milk of Magnesia and Mirlax as well.  Unfortunately the MOM and Mirlax did not loosen things up and on day three of not having a movement I had to drink Magnesium Citrate.  That did the trick and I had a movement but it was solid and caused an anal fisure.  The surgery site was painfull, I am not gonna lie here, it was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life.  I did not realize a person could go through so much pain!  That pain was nothing compared to the pain of the surgery and an anal fisure on top of it!  No joke, that pain cause me to cry and to almost scream (I think a couple times I did scream actually) when having a bowel movement and the pain lingers about 4 hours afterwards.  It took almost 2 months before I could return to work (I still had the fisure but it was manageable) and 1 week after returning I developed an infection where the fisure was located. 

The topical treatments and antibiotics did not rid the area of the infection so on 07/18/2011 I was back in having more surgery for that as well.  This time I had the skin tags removed that were left from removing the external hems, the infection was cut open to drain and heal, and I received a shot of Botox in the area as well to allow for easier passage with bowel movements.  It was explained to me that with a fisure the anal area tightens when trying to have a bowel movement in order to prevent further damage with the fisure but then leads to other problems.  The Botox loosens the area without having surgery allowing the site to heal yet still allowing you to have normal bowel functions.   It did not cause any accidents for me, which can be a problem if surgery is performed and the spinter muscle is cut. 

The best advise I can give to someone having this surgery is to start drinking the Mirlax prior to having the surgery, drink lots of water and add fiber to your diet - get your system on a schedule.  Once you have the surgery, double the Mirlax  and the MOM if needed to have an easy bowel movement afterwards, as a hard stool can cause a fisure which can lead to an infection.  The pain meds do constipate you!  Sitz baths - they are a must.  After the 1st surgery I was never told of sitz baths, after the second I was sent home with the kit and used it 3 times a day.  What a difference that made!  Ice packs are also nice for the swelling! 

Do a google search for Hemorriod Surgery, and After poop report, there is a comical write up about this surgery.  The author's description left me in tears when I read it from laughing so hard.  Unfortunately the description as comical as it may be is right on the money, although my dogs did not run away!

If asked if I would do it again, I would have to say I would.  I look forward to feeling normal.  Despite all the pain I see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

I am so glad I found this forum!!!

I have my surgery scheduled for next week and now I am scared sh!tless!!! :)  The stories here are just absolutely horrible. But I am not sure I have a choice.

I have internal and external hemorrhoids. I had this for over 10 years and it drives everything in my life. When I have BM, the anus and hemorrhoids expand so much that it protrudes out about an inch. It is extremely uncomfortable. If I have BM during the day, I cannot do anything. I can't sit, I can move, without pain and considerable amount of bleeding. I take metamucil everyday (been for over 4 years), and I make sure I take my BM every day right before I go to sleep so that I can take a hot shower afterwards (helps with pain and to clean up all the blood, etc.) and I go straight to bed because that is the only way the protrution goes back inside and I can function normally the next day (even with that I suffer bouts of extreme pain when my sphincter contracts by itself). Even with that I am uncomfortable while sitting and any extensive physical activity will cause hemorrhoids to fall out.

I am just tired of hemorrhoids running my life. I want some semblance of independence.

So, I am going to still go through with my surgery next week, even though I know it will probably be hell for next few weeks. Wish me luck.

The question I have is, has anyone around here gone through the similar extreme hemorrhoid conditions? How is the pain afterwards compare to before? I already have pretty decent pain when I have BM every day. How much worse will it be? Will the fact that I already have a regiment for having soft stool help with my recovery?

Thanks to everyone here for letting me talk about this. Obviously, this is not something that you can freely discuss with friends and even with my wife.

I had the same pain and protruding hemarroids and pain all day after a bm, i used to lean sideways at work all day if i had a bm.  What a nightmare. the worst part after surgery is the anxiety you feel when you know you have to have a bm, i would sweat, and panic a little.  the best way to deal with it is to have the bath ready as hot as you can stand it, because after you go you want to ease the pain and throbbing.  Theres throbbing after the bm, for a few hrs, but if you take your painkillers regularly you might be able to combat this. Just make sure to keep a hot water bottle or heatpad under your butt after you finish the bath.  this sounds crazy i know, but i would just sit in the sitz bath and keep refilling it with hot water just not to feel the throbbing.  After about two weeks i was good to go back to work, i had a bad case of internal and external hemmaroids but recovered very well.  what a difference in my life since, my bm's and hemarroids don't rule my life anymore.  Its a big difference, life-changing.

Gameboy, I think its been two months since you had your operation so I wanted to hear how things went for you as I had exactly same condition as you. I had to have my BM before sleeping otherwise my day would turn to hell!  I had my operation on the 1st of Dec 2011 so its been 20 days today since the operation... well I'm feeling pretty good I guess, if I don't have BM then I feel 95% fine and don't even feel that I had an operation 20 days ago. After BM I do jump into bath for 20 or so minutes to clean the area and also it helps with the immediate pain of BM. However after around an hour or two of BM I get this dull pain that is quite annoying and sometimes quite painful. It usually last around 4-5 hours before it goes away.
I had two internal hemorrhoids removed from either side along with couple of tags so I think the pain of BM is do the internal wounds that are still healing... the wound stretches during the BM and starts hurting.  I also have bit of discharge (mucus from what I can tell) throughout the day especially after the BM. Again I associate that with healing process and hope that it will go away after week or so.
Its pretty late at the moment so I'll post my experience of this operation and how I'm copping with it.

35 yr old female. I had my surgery 9 days ago.  It begins as a horror story but has a happy ending.  

Thanks to everyone who posted on this thread - I was beginning to think I was crazy for being in so much pain for so long and at least know what I'm feeling is normal!  Thank you for the peace of mind.

My doctor told me I would be "sore" for 2-3 days after my surgery... not in screaming, writhing pain for a full week.  I think my husband thought I was dying with the amount of crying and screaming that was going on in this house every day.  Had I known how incredibly painful this was going to be, I never would have had the surgery (and my doctor told me that my surgery was 'very minor' so I can't even imagine how the rest of you were feeling if your hemorrhoids were worse than mine).  At night, even when I was sleeping, I was moaning with pain - which my husband informed me of every morning after another sleepless night for him.  Even just urinating was painful with trying to relax the muscles.  And forget coughing, sneezing, or blowing my nose - you might as well have been ripping my limbs off.

Things that helped:  stool softner (2 a day), taking warm baths after every BM, motrin, and eating a lot of fiber (I was eating fiber bars, metamucil, activia, crackers with lots of fiber, plum juice which had the same fiber content as prune juice but tasted better).  The pain killers were making me constipated so I tried to stop taking them as soon as possible and switched to motrin instead (although "as soon as possible" was 7 days after the surgery).

I am now three weeks into the healing process and my BM today was painful and more bloody than anything I experienced right after the surgery.  Saw the doctor today and said that was normal (looked like I ripped a stitch during the BM).  He said I could bleed for another month!  Again, something I wish I knew prior to surgery.

 

For everyone that has already had skin tags removed, did you end up with what appeared to be a thombrosed hemorrhoid where the skin tag used to be? Is it actually just swelling and will it go away? Does your ass hole now feel and appear smooth?

I had my surgery Friday 2/10/12. The doctor gave me a prescription for OxyContin. I felt horrible taking it. This morning I took an Aleve and skipped the OxyContin and feel 100% better. I am not going to rush it and run back to the office, but I am going to stay away from the OxyContin. Things are moving on the other end too.

Hang in there keep your eye on the prize I'm on day 8. It will be well worth it in the end but it willbe 3 to 4 weeks before u start to feel relief. Good luck!

This site has been so helpful for me as well. I no longer feel alone with all of this. I had my surgery 3/1...My doc told me I could go back to work the next day..yea right! The pain was almost unbearable for me. day two I couldnt stop throwing up bc of the pain i was in. The doc called in some zofran for me and that helped with the nausea.

I have to jump right into the bath tub after every BM bc the pain is so bad...My husband said he could hear me moaning outside the house!

I feel almost back to normal until I have to go to the bathroom...and still having a good amount of blood with the BM and lots of pressure. My abdomen has been really distended as well since the surgery. Been taking the colace, drinking lots of water, fiber diet...and have been slowing taking myself off the narcs..

I know this will all be worth it but if I had to do this surgery over again...I am not sure I would?

My midwife told me with baby#4 that because of my family history, i should be taking citrus bioflavonoids and vitamin C daily. I take Natural Factors bioflavonoids -3 a day, with vitamin C and it helps prevent hemmorhoids. If i run out of bioflavonoids, i am quickly in trouble ( which is why i had the excision for thrombosed h. Today). I'm just looking to see how long recovery will be and kinda getting scared, but we're all different, and hoping it won't be as bad as it's been for some of you!

Day 2 update

I had two thrombosed hemmorhoids - one big and one little. The most painful part was getting the anaesthetic - i think i would ask for EMLA cream if i had to do it again- i yelled loud and long and i knew there was a man sitting in the tiny hallway just outside the door. But, man!


Anyway, i had already been taking massive doses of vitamin C " to bowel tolerance". If you take a lot of vitamin C it softens your stool.


The actual procedure( cut and take out clot) lasted literally seconds - he showed me the clot, the nurse washed me up and put some gauze and gave me a pad to wear. They said i would need it for the rest of the day and the freezing would wear off in two hours.


On the way home, my husband stopped to get some tylenol for when the freezing wore off, and the pharmacist was horrified that i didn't have a prescription for anything ( but i did have xylocaine at home from before). He gabe dh tylenol with codeine.


I've been super meticulous with changing the gauze ( just using cotton makeup swabs), putting on xylocaine and proctosone after every time i go to the bathroom or every four hours when i take the tylenol with codeine.


Dh got me a doughnut cushion to sit on and i spent the rest of the day sitting or reclining. By bedtime, i was pretty swollen, but i slept pretty well- got up every four hours to medicate.


This morning the swelling was down a little, and i had my first bm- no pain, just a little bleeding. So glad, after reading some of the stories on here. I am eating lots of fruit, drinking lots of water, taking a lot of vitamin C and using witchhazel to wipe after i go to the bathroom.


I did use the sitz bath with epsom salts yesterday, and a ot bath at bedtime. But so far, so good!


I have to drive out to the airport today, but that will be my only exercise and then i'm back on my bed with the rubber doughnut and the ipad :). I'm being super careful early on. I'll update as things progress.


Now i've had the three most painful things happen to me. (childbirth, kidney stones, and thrombosed hemmorhoids. ). Argh! And labour coming up again in ten weeks. I just want to be totally healed by then.

Now it's been a week. I am still in a lot of pain. Went back to the dr, and he just said keep taking the tylenol with codeine and gave me more xylocaine( but weaker so i have to go back to get stronger stuff tomorrow). It's not just the surgery, i'm hugely pregnant and my hips are out of joint, and it's just been a really hard pgcy, but i am at the point where i would rather die than be in this much pain. I lay on my bed and my bigger children help out a bunch, but there is no joy in anything- i can barely stand to hear their voices, and hate them bumping the bed. I still have a lot of sore tissue sticking out and a big scab about an inch or two long like a ridge on it. Will the scab eventually fall off? I hadn't had any drainage until yesterday- just a tiny drop of blood, but now i'm bleeding a lot more, and no idea why at this stage. Is it because of the rough scab and scar tissue? I hate this. At least when i had the kidney stone, they put me on morphine for three days so i wasn't even really conscious.