Swelling and Pain After Hemorrhoidectomy Surgery

Mags, Thanks for the encouragement!!! It truly does help to hear from others who have been on this journey and have reached the other side! I am glad you are pain free now and feeling better!

 

Hi Mags. I thought I just replied to your post, but now I don't see it. I wanted to say thank you for the encouragement. It truly helps to know someone else has been on this journey and made it to the other side. I am glad you are pain free and feeling better! Best wishes for continued good health!

Well, there it is.... sorry for the duplicate posts!

Hello everyone!
Like PITA, I've been MIA too but I didn't go to Vegas. I just have been extremely busy writing report cards for my class. This is the last week of school. I can hardly wait. My surgery was Feb. 28th. I have stopped taking the stool softeners and BM's are ok but not very frequent so I think I should increase my fiber. I haven't been eating the healthiest this month with so much running around and stress. I can't wait to start going to the gym again.

I won't be posting on here much more. If you'd like to keep in touch, send me a private message and I'll send you my contact info. I was hoping Breezie that you'd be much better now.

Welcome to all the new people. This is the best forum because like it has been said so many times before, no one can understand fully unless they have experienced it the themselves.

Speedy recovery to you all.

Hi Aussie.

I have thought about a massage. My back can't handle massages, though. I know that sounds strange, but I've had back issues and any time I have tried massages, I have wound up with full-back spasms. I see a physical therapist instead. She is amazing. I have thought of getting in to see her when I feel like getting out more. She is on vacation at the moment. I appreciate the offer of the water bottle. That is very generous and kind of you. I think the postal charge would be more than the bottle! lol I have decided to just go ahead and order one. It will be worth it if it helps me feel better and recover faster. It's an investment. Please know I am very touched by your offer. I would not hesitate to accept it if I felt like I really could not do it.

I sense a kindred spirit in you as well. It's funny how you can connect to someone over this machine, but it just shows that the world is a small place.

It helps to know you were tearful with your doctor too. I get pretty nervous around doctors. I try to be honest about my anxiety and most of the time they just wind up looking at me like I'm crazy. I also am a very informed patient, so I'm not sure that many doctors (at least here) are comfortable with that. And because of some of our family history, I am more fearful about something being wrong than I used to be. (long story) I try to be straightforward with doctors, but maybe I just come across as neurotic. LOL Several months ago, my boss (who is also a good friend) went to my orthopedic doctor with me because he made me so nervous and I didn't think he was taking me seriously. She was able to tell him that it really was as bad as I said it was and she was seeing the effect on me at work (I had a back injury after getting rear ended). So, maybe that gives you an idea how horrible I am with doctors!

I have thought about the delay in antidepressants working. I had considered asking for them before surgery since I have a history of depression in the past, but I thought I would be okay for 4-6 weeks. I have many good skills now for dealing with depression. I think my energy to use those skills is just depleted at the moment. I would be better treated with anti-anxiety meds but I cannot tolerate any of them, unfortunately. I take after my mother with all these sensitivities I have to everything!

Thankfully, I only had 2 BM's today (and it is 10 pm here). I think I'm done for the day. Having some time between them has to be helpful for healing. I'm having issues, especially in the morning, with feeling like I have to go, then when I sit down, it is clear that it is not going to happen easily. So I get up immediately and either soak in the tub if the pain is bad or walk around until it will come out. That is such a drastic change from where I was a week or two ago. I am really at a loss for why this sudden change. Anyway, my goal is to keep things as soft as possible. I absolutely dread BM's. I still just try to breathe and let it happen. This afternoon I started to use a very tiny amount of polysporin on the very sorest area. I don't know if it is helping, but I thought it couldn't hurt. I am not putting anything in the rectum. I can't even conceive of going that close without a doctor's okay! But I thought the polysporin may help something external heal if there is anything. I'm still using Vaseline as well.

I am going to go take a final soak for the night and then try to get to bed and rest. I usually can sleep by midnight. Then I am up and down going to the bathroom (all that water), and at 4 am I take doses of the Tylenol and Advil. I am usually awake for good by 7 am, which is sleeping in from my normal schedule. :) Mornings are still awful for me. But you are right. Only one more day and then I will hopefully be able to see my doctor, get some answers, and perhaps get some direction on what to do next.

Peaceful and healing wishes to you, and to anyone reading this forum.

Hi Soar!
It is good to hear from you and to know that you are back to mostly normal things again. Hope is truly a gift we can give others, and you and Aussie, and the others on this forum have done this for me. I am very grateful.

Best wishes for healing and wholeness. I did send you a message as well.

Well it is Sunday here. Day 39 after surgery. I hardly slept at all last night due to pain and discomfort. This morning is starting off worse than yesterday. It hurts to even walk around. I have no appetite this morning. I think I am going to go to Urgent Care. I forgot all about this option as it was not mentioned by the surgeon's office. It only occurred to me in the middle of the night. It is a 'step down' from the ER, and is still staffed by a board certified emergency room doctor. It's for things that are not life threatening or "emergencies." I just think I need a doctor to take a look down there and make sure nothing is going on that needs immediate attention. Also, maybe if there is a fissure, they will see it and be able to prescribe something I can start today. And also, maybe if my surgeon's office gets a report that I was seen by Urgent Care, they will take me more seriously. I am not looking forward to going somewhere and sitting and waiting to be seen - but the wait there is usually less than the ER. I also am not all that excited about having a doctor I don't know poke around down there, but I don't know what else to do. I have no guarantee that when I call my surgeon tomorrow they will even see me tomorrow!

I am just feeling so discouraged to have this set back and so much pain. It's almost more than I can take. I'm trying to be strong and positive, but lack of sleep sure isn't helping.

The Urgent Care place doesn't open until 10 am and it's not quite 9 here. Plus I have to wait and see if I have another BM coming - and it feels like I do - and I'll need to get that pain manageable so I can manage to get over there. It's not far from my house which is a plus. If narcotics didn't bind me up I would definitely take something today.

I wish I could just go back to having only hem surgery pain. LOL Imagine that! Whatever this new stuff is, on top of the hem surgery pain, is just terrible.

 

 

 

Well, I called over to Urgent Care before going, and the doctor said I should still go to the ER if I want to be seen - because if they need to call the surgeon they would just send me over there anyway. I dread the ER. I don't know if I will go. We have had very bad experiences there. I know if I go I will sit for HOURS waiting to be seen, have a doctor poke around down there, and they may not even do anything for me except tell me to call the surgeon tomorrow. The idea of sitting for hours is beyond me right now. I don't have a fever, so I don't think it's an infection.

I don't know what to do. I'll probably just lay down for a bit and think about it.

Breezie you poor thing. I feel helpless reading your post. It has been a few hours now since you wrote it, so I hope you have made the right decision about what to do today. I can understand your reservations about going to the ER, but at the same time, you sound quite ill. It is possible that you even have an abcess if you have pain and swelling and feel unwell. I had this condition a few years ago, and did not have a fever either. Anyway, it is not my role to suggest a diagnosis. Thank goodness your surgeon is open Monday morning. Maybe you just need to turn up at 9am and insist on being seen, and just wait. I said a prayer for you last night and will continue to think of you until I know all is well again (and it should be soon).

Thanks Aussie. So I am starting this again. I greatly appreciate your support and your prayers. I know I keep saying that, but I hope you know how much I appreciate your commitment to sticking with me through this. You seem like a really great person, and I’m sure you must be a great nurse as well. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I decided not to go to the ER today. I am a little afraid of our ER, to be quite frank. Just an example: My husband crushed (rather, obliterated) his right calcaneus in a fall this past November. He also had a compound fracture. We waited 2 hours to be seen, and he was dripping blood all over the floor! I kept going up and pressing the issue and they would just come over and put a pad down to catch the blood. We still got in ahead of many people and when we left some of those folks were still there waiting, hours later. I am grateful for the ER for when it’s needed, and I understand that life and death situations take priority. But I feel that if I went in with anal pain and no fever, I would have been there for HOURS waiting. I also don’t know if they would have done anything more than look and tell me to see my surgeon tomorrow. The only real benefit would have been that maybe my surgeon would take me more seriously tomorrow, but the cost in money and time and pain didn’t seem worth it.

I am trying to limit my food intake yesterday and today to try and limit number and size of BMs. I have some weight to spare so it’s not likely to cause me many problems, and I am eating healthy things. I just hope it works and allows that area to heal a little. I am sure that numerous BMs during the day has not been helping much. I am still a little hungry now and then but I just drink more water.

I had 2 BMs this morning that were very, very painful with severe spasms afterward. I haven’t had another BM today, but the night is not over yet! I had some sharp, stabbing pains on and off during the day that came and went fairly quickly, but it was still distressing. The pain after BMs was reminiscent of week 1 or 2, the spasms are so bad. I also tried to walk around more today. I can’t say I moved fast, but I did try to get up and walk around for 5 minutes or so every hour or so if I could.

I plan to call the surgeon first thing tomorrow. I have written out some notes of what I want to say in terms of symptoms and what I need, so I don’t get flustered. I don’t think I could just show up, I am too mild mannered. I know I need to grow a backbone!  Plus, mornings are so bad for me that I probably wouldn’t be able to get over there that early! 

I know I have said this many times, but I do greatly appreciate your support and commitment to sticking with me through this. It means more than words can ever say. Your kindness is making a difference to me.

Just a note: The whole staring this again refers to I had to restart my post 3 or 4 times. I think we are having some issues with our internet. So I typed it in Word and then pasted it over so maybe I wouldn't have to start from scratch each time.

Also, I wanted to ask how you are doing Aussie? Are you improving and feeling better? You are almost at 7 weeks right? I saw where Soar posted earlier and it has been almost 4 months for her. I know I will get better eventually, but I think I will feel some relief of some kind if the doctor will just examine me and let me know what is going on!!! I also plan to ask for one of those creams to help with spasms. I just hope he will prescribe them. Some of them have to be made by an apothecary here. Isn't it strange how in some countries these things are over the counter and in others they are not so easily available? I am not sure I would just use it without a doctor saying so, but it would help if it was easier to get perhaps.

I hope you have a wonderful, pain free day at work. I will let you know what happens tomorrow.

Thanks for your kind words Breezie. I'm sure if the tables were turned, you would offer me words of support as well. I feel like we are in this together now, as we have suffered together for so many weeks.

I think your call on what would happen in the ER is exactly right. When I presented in my local ER in 2006 with an anorectal abcess, I encountered a doctor who obviously found my condition very distasteful, and told me it was a haemorrhoid, and just to "push it back in". I went home distressed and tried to do this, and you can imagine the pain it caused, as I was pushing on an abcess, and there was no way I could push it anywhere. After becoming increasingly ill over the next week, I got an appointment with my (current) surgeon, who had me on the operating table within 3 hours. I'm not telling you this because I think it is your likely outcome, by the way. It's just an example (as it seems you have already experienced before anyway) of how wrong they can get it. And you're right, they would probably only refer you back to the surgeon on Monday morning anyway.

So you just have to get through till Monday morning now. I think you are about 14 hours behind Sydney time, so it must be about 9pm Sunday there. I would take whatever painkillers you can to get you through the night tonight - although I know not much works with this type of pain. Good luck with your phone call and you must refuse to hang up until they agree to see you Monday! Fingers crossed for a good outcome.

Our last posts must have crossed somewhere across the Pacific Ocean, so now I will answer this one!

I think I am improving the last few days. Whether it is the rectogesic cream or just my body finally doing the right thing, I don't know, but things are feeling better. It is weird how the cream is available over-the-counter here, but not in the US. I suppose no one would really use or abuse this ointment, unless you really needed it, so perhaps thats why it is so easy to get here. The doctor wrote the name on a piece of paper for me, but it definitely didn't require a prescription.

You are right, it is 7 weeks today since my operation. I would have thought I would be long healed by now, but it has taken this long, and things are not quite back to normal, although I hope I am on the road to recovery now. You will get there too when you get over this latest hurdle, I'm sure of it.

I think you are right about the time difference, and yes, I would be there for you, too. I hope the support I can offer also is helpful to you. I feel badly that I seem to be doing all the taking right now! But I am also very glad you are doing better. It must be a relief to have turned a corner, at least partly. I have a feeling that “doing better” for both of us means the pain is not going to be as severe, but it will still be a while before we are feeling truly well. But I will take that, I think. If I can get this severe pain/spasm to reduce and be able to function again, that will be an improvement.

I think the rectogesic may be helping your recovery. What I’ve read about it, it helps to reduce spasms and increase blood flow, as I think you’ve also mentioned in a previous post. So it is probably a combination of the cream helping your body do what it needs to do.

I think part of the reason I couldn’t sleep last night was just anxiety and dread of the pain that comes with morning BM’s. I even had weird dreams that were related to anxiety, I’m sure. I hope I’m tired enough to sleep well tonight!

I am so beside myself. I called my surgeon's office first thing, and they told me he isn't in today. They had me go to the ER, which I did. Thankfully it was early in the day, and no one else was there. I got right in! I do indeed have a fissure. The ER doc could not tell me exactly how far in it went. She gave me some lidocaine ointment which did nothing for the pain. I talked with her about the 3 ointments I had researched, and she was not comfortable prescribing them since they could affect blood pressure and she wouldn't be able to track me. She felt my surgeon would be willing to consider this since she had seen me and visually confirmed the fissure. I was crying in the ER, in pain, but she still wouldn’t consider it. So I called the surgeon's office (from the ER) and they said he was not available today and they fit me in for an appointment tomorrow at noon. THEN shortly after I got home, they called to change the appointment to Thursday afternoon. I broke down sobbing. I asked if they could get him or one of the other doctors to call in one of these ointments and she said he would not be willing to do that without seeing me first. I was just sobbing my heart out. I told her how much pain I was in, how depressed I felt, and that I feel afraid to eat because of pain of the BM. She just said she was sorry and that I could try to my primary doc. She did sound like she felt bad for me, but obviously she wasn't willing to fit me in to his schedule tomorrow or any sooner. She said I could call tomorrow to see if there was a cancellation. I even told her did she think I would go to the ER if I was not hurting very badly and that the ER doc really did feel he would be willing to prescribe SOMETHING since I had been seen. Nothing doing. I called my primary doc and talked to her nurse. She is going to ask her, but I highly doubt she will be willing to do anything if the surgeon isn’t willing to do it. She is pretty conservative as well.

I can’t stop crying. I haven’t eaten anything yet today and I know I need to. It’s almost 12:30. I dread the pain so much. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I was mentally okay when I thought I would see him tomorrow, but Thursday seems so far away.

The ER doctor called me a “slow healer.” She said the hem surgery site looked like it was healing okay but there is still drainage. Then there is this fissure that she said was “near the hemorrhoids, at their base.” I’m not even sure what she was talking about, except maybe she meant the swelling from the surgery which is still there. I sure hope there aren’t any new hemorrhoids!

I don’t know what else to do. I feel so hopeless at the moment. When will I ever get better? I just want to get my life back. And I can’t believe the surgeon’s office would just let me go that long suffering without being seen. The nurse said I could always go back to the ER if I needed something for the pain, and I told her that honestly they weren’t going to be able to do anything for me either because they had already done what they could this morning. That’s why I need to see the doctor who did the operation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am seeing a general surgeon with lots of experience. The nearest colon-rectal specialist was 2 hours away from me, and that was just not an option for surgery. I don't know what else to do.

I am shocked to say this, but my primary care doctor actually prescribed the nitroglycerin ointment for me!!!  I really am in shock. I don't think I will believe it till I have it in hand. I was initiallly told it had to be compounded by the local Apothecary, meaning insurance would not cover it. But they just called and told me it JUST became commercially available and costs $450. Thankfully, my insurance will cover it and I only have to pay $55. Still not cheap but worth it if the pain is reduced. They have to order it, but it should be in by tomorrow morning around 10 am. I am just really hoping it will ease the muscle spasms down there. Praying, hoping, hoping, praying...... 

I do feel a little better that my primary care doctor actually did this. She isn't normally one to just call things in without seeing me, but maybe since I was seen at the ER.... maybe that helped. Also, maybe she knows what it's like! I don't know the reason, but I am grateful. I can't wait to get this medication and try it. I know it's not a wonder cure or a fast acting medication, but I am hoping it will relieve the terrible, terrible spasms. I was most fearful that the powerful spasms would make the fissure worse or interfere with healing.

Also, this just makes me feel like something is being done. I just wish my surgeon would have been so kind.

I will keep you updated. Now, let's just hope I don't have some sensitivity to it.....

I did eat something for lunch - not much, but some couscous cooked in veg broth with kidney beans (leftover from last night and very yummy I might add) and half an apple. Still drinking water and taking Benefiber and stool softeners. Still taking Tylenol and Advil. I am still afraid to eat much. I only had one BM this morning and I think it was from cutting back on food intake. I don't want to NOT go, but if I can keep it down to once or twice a day, soft and smooth, maybe I will heal better.

I should not read too much stuff online. There are some real horror stories about anal fissures, just like hem surgery. But it's also the only way I would even learn about some of the treatment options available and know what to ask for. I just am really hoping this fissure heals completely and doesn't stick around too long or come back.

Thanks for the support. I really mean that!