what is the recovery time for hemorrhoid surgery

god_help_me - are you using sitzbaths??? You NEED to get one right now.

Sorry to hear about ur pain. It does get better. I had my surgery about 5 weeks ago. I am just about back to normal now. The painkillers were amazing. I couldn't have gone without it. I had to take 2 percocets every 4 hours for the first 4-5 days. My doctor just reminded me to drink lots of water. That really helps with the constipation. But diarrhea is not the way to go. It actually made it worse for me cuz it would sting and burn. I ate the normal foods I always ate. I just ate less cuz I was afraid of BM's. As for everyone talking about the sitz baths... I didn't use them much. The squirt bottle I got from the hospital was much better. And the hotter the water the better. And also use wet wipes. They help a lot. I had regular wet wipes and the Preparation H ones. I only took the Milk of Magnesia once in a while but I took Metamucil daily. But as normal as I feel, I still have to watch wat I eat. For some reason, when I eat crawfish, my BM's sting a little and I get diarrhea. But I have no problems with regular foods. Good Luck to You. It does get better!

So I just thought I would post another update. Things are good here. Only 2 things left that are bothersome: One is a small (pea size) bubble of skin that is left from the stitching. It feels a little tender and I am hoping it will shrink in size as time goes by. It's in a weird spot.
Also, I am itching like crazy. I know it's the healing but dear lord is it bad. I almost prefer some pain!
BMs continue to go well, so no problems there. Still doing a couple of sitzbaths per day which is such help keeping things clean and all.

Thanks for the positive words.

I am feeling better but BMs still hurt like crazy. I have stopped the enemas and now I just use stool softener and the Milk of Mag to ensure I do not back up at all. I am still almost all liquids but I had chicken and rice soup yesterday. I think I will have some more today.

Sorry to hear about your itching and the skin bump. Maybe it will go away after some more time to recover.

I have a 3 hour exam next week so I hope I can sit through it.

am now 4 weeks post op & things are improving slowly but surely.i would say the pain & suffering is probably half what it was at the 2 week stage.been eating mainly soups & trying to limit solid meals to just once a day which i find helps.my surgeon told me i would only need 2 days off work!!what a joke that was.i have also delayed my first post op trip back to see him because i still feel too sore for an internal inspection to be carried out.don't eat indian food whatever you do!i tried this after 3 weeks thinking i was better & spent all the next day in bed or the bath!

:'( Not sure how to do this, I have never posted a comment on anything. I had hemorrhoid surgery 4 weeks ago, and I am in such a depression over the pain I can't even describe it. I am looking for others who feel the same way I do so I don't feel like such an id**t. I think my doctor thinks I am just blowing smoke. I am very frustrated and sick of the pain!

I felt the same way too..... I had the surgery on 3/2 and just went back to work today.... I had an infection after the surgery and became very depressed dealing with the pain, discomfort and feeling like I was dragging. I do have to say that I am "back to normal" now so give it a little more time and all of a sudden you will feel like your old self... there is a light at the end of this tunnel and you will be glad that you took care of your hemorrhoid problem. I do have to say I second guessed my decision MANY times...... but am happy now :>)

You may remember me from way back. I posted on January 9th 2007 (Afraid in Wheaton Illinois), and I was scheduled for surgery on the following Monday morning.

I'm happy to report that after reading every thread in this forum I cancelled that sugery after spoke with my doctor's assistant and stated flat out- "I've been reading that this is this surgery will leave me with the most miserable pain on earth. Just tell me that it is not so and that the pain is fully manageable and I will go through with this..no questions."
"Well.......she said.......I'm not going to lie.......it's going to hurt....it's going to hurt a lot!....you're going to be in a lot of pain for a couple of weeks...yeah..it's pretty bad."

Well that's all I needed to hear. Boom. surgery cancelled. I had read enough up to that point, and now, I had certainly heard enough.

Three weeks later I had banding #1 great. No problem. 2 weeks later #2 great. 2 weeks later#3...Awesome.. My bleeding has stopped! Wow. No pain to speak of. #4...#5 another troublemaker as the doc put it but no pain involved great!....#6.... done!
I'm feeling good. I'm not bleeding. I'm not in unspeakable pain and agony and I consider myself a huge success story.
You know what they say. If we don't study history, we are doomed to repeat it. Well, I'm thanking the forefathers of the internet right now.

I still have occasionally swollen external hemorrhoids and they can be bothersome on the rare occasion but now I see almost no reason to subject myself to the unbearable destiny. I have this under control and I enjoy my bottom just fine the way it is now. No pain. No bleeding. No worries.

I do still have to go in one month from now to discuss a small external tag problem and what surgery would entail, but this is minor compared to what I would have had to go through getting six internals chopped out and external repair at the same time.

Thank you to everyone who responded to my post in January. (Afraid in Wheaton, Illinois)
I should have returned to the forum right away to explain what I was doing. I may have helped others with my story.

My hope is that anyone out there considering this surgery for internal and external hemorrhoids will first take the time to take care of your internal hemorrhoids with banding it it's appropriate for your condition. You could be, like myself, saving yourself a chapter in your life that tells a story of an unimaginable misery.

I feel for all of you out there who were not so fortunate and I thank you for taking the time during your most painful days to share your story. It is because of you that I have avoided a similar fate. Truly, there is no way that I can thank you all enough. To those of you that have found this forum too late. I give you my best wishes for a speedy recovery during your time with an unbearable destiny.

Most Sincerely, One very lucky and thankful guy in Illinois.

I am posting for the person who said that the pain they are in has left them feeling depressed. This happened to me last fall when I had my hemorrhoid surgery. The pain I experienced left me totally depressed and I am usually a very upbeat happy person. I feel for you and know exactly what you are going through. It is terrible. The only positive thing that I can say is that I lost over 60 pounds (which I needed to lose) but everyone keeps asking me how I lost the weight. I don't recommend this type of weight loss for anybody. I am still afraid to eat. I would rather have gained an additional 60 pounds and not have gone through this. From all of this I have learned an important lesson, "it is better to FEEL good than to look good."

Traditional hemorrhoidectomies should be banned by the American Medical Association. NOBODY should have to experience hemorrhoidectomy pain except the surgeons who perform them. Then maybe none would be performed.

I am 7 months out from my surgery and still not 100% better. I have what my latest CRS says is an unhealed wound left from my hemorrhoidectomy that won't heal. I have also been told by two other CRS's that it is a fissure. Whatever it is, it is more painful than any hemorrhoid I have ever had. Everyday I wish that I could go back and NOT have this surgery. Feel free to vent here. I will check back to see if you have posted again. I know what you are going through. I pray that you get better soon. Please pray for me too.

I am feeling in the dark here and could use any help that anyone can offer.

I have had 2-3 severe external hemorrhoids for about 5 days now, don't know what made them show up then, wish they hadn't. After seeing that they were not shrinking or going away and BM being painful on the 2nd and 3rd day I decided to go to the doctor. Monday was day 5, they are uncomfortable but not as painful as day 2 and 3. I went to an urgent care and after waiting 2.5 hours in the waiting room finally got to see the doctor. He says I need to have them surgically removed or they will not go away. Any thing that he can do would be half a solution so he referred me to a surgon friend of his. The paperwork said they were thrombosed. I DO NOT HAVE INSURANCE and he said that the surgon would do the surgery in office and work with me about money issues. I am to call him today, Tuesday, in the am to set up an appointment to talk with him and have it done in the afternoon. Started to call him at 9am, ringing ringing ringing, called about 6 or 7 more times until about 1130 when i called through a different hospital line to talk to a receptionist that said the phone lines were down and they were being worked on as we speak (god send?). She took my name and phone number and told me he would give me a call a little later on. Hopefully this will buy some more research time.

After researching all last night and all day about the procedure and different options i stumbled across this message board... SOMETHING TELLS ME I DON'T WANT TO GO THROUGH WITH THIS PROCEDURE. I DO NOT KNOW. After reading all of the testimonials I am leaning away from the surgery, I don't feel I can afford to be off my feet for that long. I keep running across sclerotherapy on the internet also.

I am also planning on moving at the end of the month, or maybe in two, not sure yet, trying to iron out details. It's a long move from NC to IL.


Please give me some advice or good words to help my decision. And good luck to all of you who have been through it, I send you my best.

It is official. I hate my life.

Only now (12 days after surgery) am I starting to feel well enough to eat "normal" food (still all super high fiber and tons of water to keep the BMs soft) and go for a walk everyday...

new external hemorrhoid! And it hurts like HELL. Are you kidding?

The one I had removed I had for over 10 years and I was told I would recover in a week and be able to go biking again in 10 to 14 days.

I have a PhD qualifying exam in a few days and now all I can think about is how it will be months before I can exercise again and how I really may never ride a bicycle again.

The post above mine scares the _____ out of me.

I am so depressed. I cannot do this again. Is there any other option - laser, electro-cautery, something without open wounds and months of recovery?

I didn't have a hemmerroidectomy, but i had an abscess that was in the anal canal cut wide open and drained. It is week 11. I am still not healed. the bleeding/pussing stopped after week 4.

BM's have been virtually painless during the movement because I have been taking Kondremul. Kondremul is an emolient laxative that make poos silky smooth. I know it is not good to be on laxatives for a long time, but this is an emolient laxative rather than a stimulant laxative and it allows me to have fairly comfortable days folllowing the inevitable morning BM.

I thought I would post another update - this one isn't so great. Apparently I have a spot that won't heal and everytime I have a BM (which in itself is not painful at all) I have terrible burning and swelling afterwards, almost like the abscess I had in the first place. I am taking antibiotics for that. As long as I don't go to the bathroom for a while I am 100% fine though and have not needed pain medicine in a while.
Sounds like the surgery for external hemorrhoids is a lot less painful to recover from than the internal ones. (I had several very large external ones removed, a fissure repaired and a sphincterotomy).
I am still positive that I won't regret this surgery in the long run..... I hope it stays that way though and that last little bit heals up in a hurry. I am getting tired of having to beat around the bush to tell them at work why I can't come in (which is really just because I need my sitzbath after a BM - but I can't say that to my bosses!)

I am feeling in the dark here and could use any help that anyone can offer.

I have had 2-3 severe external hemorrhoids for about 5 days now, don't know what made them show up then, wish they hadn't. After seeing that they were not shrinking or going away and BM being painful on the 2nd and 3rd day I decided to go to the doctor. Monday was day 5, they are uncomfortable but not as painful as day 2 and 3. I went to an urgent care and after waiting 2.5 hours in the waiting room finally got to see the doctor. He says I need to have them surgically removed or they will not go away. Any thing that he can do would be half a solution so he referred me to a surgon friend of his. The paperwork said they were thrombosed. I DO NOT HAVE INSURANCE and he said that the surgon would do the surgery in office and work with me about money issues. I am to call him today, Tuesday, in the am to set up an appointment to talk with him and have it done in the afternoon. Started to call him at 9am, ringing ringing ringing, called about 6 or 7 more times until about 1130 when i called through a different hospital line to talk to a receptionist that said the phone lines were down and they were being worked on as we speak (god send?). She took my name and phone number and told me he would give me a call a little later on. Hopefully this will buy some more research time.

After researching all last night and all day about the procedure and different options i stumbled across this message board... SOMETHING TELLS ME I DON'T WANT TO GO THROUGH WITH THIS PROCEDURE. I don't think that I can give the ammount of time and still have enough money to have food to eat and a place to live. I DO NOT KNOW. After reading all of the testimonials I am leaning away from the surgery, I don't feel I can afford to be off my feet for that long. I keep running across sclerotherapy on the internet also.

I am also planning on moving at the end of the month, or maybe in two, not sure yet, trying to iron out details. It's a long move from NC to IL.


Please give me some advice or good words to help my decision. And good luck to all of you who have been through it, I send you my best.

Well here I am again. I posted on this site in January 2007 just after my operation and many time since. There have been ups and downs and to be honest I am back on a downward swing at the moment.

Things were looking up as i mentioned when I posted a while back so I went off to Malaysia for business. The plane trip was "ok" and when I got there I was so busy that I basically drank less water and let my BM's be hard so I would not want to go to toilets through the day. Once I got back to the hotel at night I would go through the process of sitting and reading a book and letting nature take its course sloooowwwwly. That worked but the was a small amount of blood with each BM but I decided that was ok.

Unfortunately I ate something bad on the second last day of my trip and got food poisioning (first time in 28 years in Malaysia) so the plane trip back to Australia was not a lot of fun. By the time I got home the bugs in my stomach had infected the wounds from the operation and I got a massive infection. This is infection number 4 so this has totally put me back to square one.

Apart from that I have a feeling that all is not well with my recovery. Even without the infections this has been 14 weeks and I am in more pain now than I was at week 10. I cant ride my motorbike again and frankly I am tired of the whole thing. I can understand that if you were not as lucky as me and you had to go to work each day (I am the boss so I can work at home if I choose) and drive yourself around, look after kids etc this could be VERY depressing. I am a very positive person by nature and have been through quite indredible pain through my life so far but I am starting to crack around the edges.

I am just OVER IT to be honest. I am now told that I have 2 more internal hemerrhoids that he wants to band. I dont know a lot about banding but I seem to hear mixed redults as to whether it works in the long term. One thing to be sure of is that I am not rushing back to have ANY procedures that I dont absolutely need.

My mother had a full hemerrhoidectomy 30 years ago and they botched it totally. She is now 85 and lives in Morphine and Oxygen. SHe has pain everyday and for many years she was told by doctors that she was being silly. Well I now sympathise with her even more than I did for all those years.

This operation is the pits. I still have the outlook that I will recover totally and this will not beat me but if you are having issues with recovery please dont blame yourself. I think its the luck of the draw, quality of the surgeon, karma or whatever but some seem to have no trouble and other dont.

I would like some feedback on the banding procedure both for and against please.

Cheers to all

Graham