Tell me about your hysterectomy

(I’m in no way looking for medical advice – I’m interested in personal stories only, particularly if your hysterectomy was relatively recent.)

I’m having a laparoscopic hysterectomy on the 13th of September. Without detailing my entire sordid medical history, let me just say that I know it’s the right choice for me and I’m confident in the surgical skills of my gynaecologist, who is one of the top doctors in this field.

For other Dopers who’ve had this operation, what was it like for you? How long and/or arduous was your recovery? Did anything unexpected happen? Any practical tips for my recovery that you’d like to share?

Thanks :slight_smile:

Sorry, the edit window expired before I could add that I’m 36 and will be keeping my ovaries.

I had my ovaries taken out as well as the uterus, through the abdomen. I had staples instead of stitches, and oddly enough, I think the staples are better.

I did have some post-op infection, but all in all, I was happy to get spayed. I absolutely do not miss buying pads and tampons, and I love to be able to buy and wear panties in bright colors and prints without worrying about staining them. No more plain white panties!

I was told that I’d feel wiped out for about 6 weeks, and that it would take me about a year to feel back to my old self again. I found this to be true. I was advised not to lift anything heavier than a wet washcloth for those first six weeks, too.

All I can say is to eat a balanced diet, starting now, so that your body can heal up more efficiently. If you habitually take NSAIDS, like aspirin or ibuprofen, talk to your doctor about this, as they are blood thinners.

I hesitate to tell you this, but several other women have had this same experience…during the second night after your surgery, you will have a bad time. This is when they wean you off of the nice morphine drip. Maybe they do things differently now (it’s been over 10 years since I had mine done) and I wanted to DIE. However, my sister had warned me about this, and told me that it’s just for the one night, so hold onto that thought. You can get through it.

Thanks for the great tips!

Not to worry – I’d much prefer that people were frank about their experiences, so thank you for sharing that tidbit. I’d heard something similar from a friend of mine who, like you, had an abdominal incision. However, my specialist has told me that one of the major differences with laparoscopic surgery is that the post-operative pain is significantly reduced, and two friends who had it done this way concurred. I hope they’re right!

I certainly hope that the lap surgery is less painful. I had bits and pieces of things that the doctor wanted to dig out, and that’s why he used the abdominal incision. I had a minilap tubal about 30 years ago, and it was nowhere near as painful.

Another thing, your internal organs are going to be moved around when the doc snips and pulls things out, so don’t try to cheat and eat stuff that you shouldn’t right afterwards. I did that after the minilap. Eventually, your organs will sort themselves out into their proper places again, but don’t put any unnecessary stress on them.

I had my hyster last year. It was supposed to have been only uterus and laprascopic. When I woke up after surgery, she had to open me Trans abdominally and also review my ovaries as they were all fused together along with surgical adhesions from a former abdominal surgery.

I have NO regrets! Even though it didn’t go according to my plan, it all worked out.

I had my laparoscopic hysterectomy in ‘09 – hope that is recent enough :p. Spent a very uncomfortable night the first night after the operation – night terrors and sleeplessness. It took me 48 – 56 hours to get all the anesthesia out of my system – everyone reacts differently to anesthesia I called my doctor an officious twit (she is not – she is a wonderful doctor with a caring bedside manner); my mother was convinced she was at 6 different hospitals in a 15 hr period. Give yourself permission to be out of it. Have someone write done where you are, why you are there, and how long you have been there. I was out of the hospital in 4 days. They kept me the extra day to get my bowels working well – I will warn you that bowel movements and urination hurt the first few times. By the 4th day you will be fine – just tell yourself it will get better.

The one thing that I really remember is how sudden tiredness would overtake me. On the 4th day I was home I walked to the mailbox, when I got to the mailbox and turned to walk back all I wanted to do was sit down and rest. I had felt fine when I started, but at the mailbox I really just wanted to sit down and stay seated. So I held on to the mailbox for about 5 min, then made my way back – then lay down and slept for 2 hours.

Sometimes I could walk with ease to the park bench (1/4th of a mile) sometime it was all I could do to make it from the kitchen to the table. There was no rhyme or reason to when the sudden tiredness would hit. This sudden attacks of just great tiredness happened for about 2 weeks and then were gone. It took really six weeks to get my strength back to anything approximating normal. I went back to work at 6 weeks and still felt weak but could put in a full 12 hours – while sitting down. Do not try walking or running for long distances or long times for at least 4 months. A friend thought she would do a ½ marathon 2 weeks after her hysterectomy – well she did cross the finish line (we drove her over it the next day after she sat down and could not stand up 2 miles in).

Let’s talk about pain. They took me off morphine the 2nd night. I was not in great pain but was slightly uncomfortable – the pain meds do not eradicate the pain the way morphine does. Not horrid pain but uncomfortable. The pain does get better. I was fine on OTC pain meds by the 2nd day home from the hospital. However if they give you nice pain meds – take them with you by all means. There is nothing like the pain of a small child hitting one of your incision – you want real pain meds if something like that happens. I took home 10 Vicoden tables – I used 3. But I also took OTC pain meds daily for 9 days after I got home. After that it was on a as needed basis for the next 3 weeks – some days were fine some days things just hurt.

Hysterectomy: Best. Operation. EVARRR!! If only because it stopped my damn fibroid-infested uterus from trying to kill me by exsanguination. I had the lap hyster in 2002 (yeah not all that recent but I remember it fondly, like it was yesterday!). I saved one ovary, the other having been removed some years before - it had gone crazy and was turning into some bizarre mishmash of spontaneous cell growth (teeth, fingernails, hair).

Anyway - I had 2 units of blood post-op for the raging anemia, the product of bleeding all the time, so frankly I felt GREAT - better than I had in months! They kept me well doped, and I’d informed them ahead of time that general anesthesia and narcotics tend to make me sick, so they had me on anti nausea drugs as well. I slept a lot. Discomfort/pain really wasn’t bad for me, but fatigue, as others upthread have stated, was very strong. Don’t expect to feel “yourself” for a couple of months.

Some great advice I got from a hysterectomy message board was to head constipation from post-op drugs off at the pass. Do not underestimate narcotics ability to bind you like cement. You will NOT be able to push anything out after your lap hysterectomy. In fact, you may be afraid to, for fear that everything now relatively “unanchored” will come tumbling out. Prepare in advance! Drink a cup of warm prune juice every night until you’re off the dope. Another woman said that she drank one beer each evening, which had the same effect for her. Use whatever means necessary to avoid constipation.

Lots of speculation on that other board was about loss of sensation/sexual response/orgasm strength after the surgery. I suppose it differs for everyone, but for me, sex is actually much, much better now. You definitely won’t miss buying all the pads and plugs, think of the money you’ll save! I wish you the best and a speedy recovery!

Nothing to add on the hysterectomy except good luck, since no-one close to me has had one, but definitely on the anaesthesia - everyone has a different reaction. My sister and mother, who are very cheerful people, woke up and cried inconsolably for about an hour each. When I had to go under, I expected to wake up crying because they both had, but actually I (a quiet, calm, not religious person) woke up giggling like a fiend and singing hymns at the top of my voice. Don’t worry what you do. They’ve seen it all before.

I had one - abdominal not laprascopic - in January. If you can wade through some treacliness there is some useful information to be gleaned from the HysterSisters website.

That’s where I learned about “swelly belly” - which is just what it sounds like. I don’t know if it happens as much with laprascopic surgery, but I’m just giving it as an example of something I was glad I knew to expect.

Regarding the rough post op transition off the morphine drip…my favorite nurse said “don’t focus on the pain. Pain won’t kill you. A blood clot will, so get up.”

Have you stayed overnight in the hospital before. I always recommend being sure to take lip balm and ear plugs.

My sister had the surgery some years earlier and she got me a house dress type of thing that snaps all the way up the front, and that’s what I took to wear home from the hospital. You’ll also want your roomiest underpants.

For riding in the car to go home she gave me a small (the size that they have on airplanes) pillow to hold against my abdomen for braking and speedbumps and that kind of motion. That was helpful at home, too for sneezing or coughing. You hold it against yourself when you feel a sneeze or a cough - or a belly laugh - and it eases the jangliness.

I don’t know how much of what I experienced related to organs being removed vs. the incision.

I planned for four weeks off from work. At my check-up my doctor wanted me to take one more. I explained that unless she wanted to pay all my bills that was simply not feasible. She made me swear an oath not to strain or lift anything too heavy. The first weeks back there were days when I just had to stop working and sit down.

Best wishes for an easy recovery.

It seems counter intuitive, but I found that I felt a lot better if I could just manage to walk for a few minutes several times a day. Apparently, the exercise helps speed healing. So, let someone know that you’re going to be moseying down the halls. If at all possible, get someone to walk with you, in case you get exhausted all of a sudden.

I’d forgotten about that.

Mine was some time ago, and complete. I was perimenopausal anyway and had previously had a stage zero borderline lesion on one ovary. The reason was continual suspicious pre-cancerous stuff and the alternative was having uterine biopsies every 6 to 12 months.

Since you have time to plan ahead, ask your doctor about autologous blood donation. I donated my own blood which was saved just for me and tranfused at the time of the operation. My recovery was much better than any of my several previous operations.

My surgery was done without a major slice, I honestly forget if it was laparascopic or vaginal.

Ditto to getting up and about as soon as you can for as much as you can without overdoing it. As others have said, after any major surgery there is usually a tendency to tire quickly. I’d feel just fine and take a walk around and suddenly be in desperate need of an immediate nap.

Holy shit - morphine, days of agony, brainfog …

I had a davinci a couple years ago at Yale-New Haven [head of GYN Oncology did mine, really nice guy]

Other than it being the second try [first try because of the infernal liquiprep shit I ended up with a run of malignant hypertension to the tune of 210/190 that got me admitted and the actual hysterectomy rescheduled for 4 months later] we changed stuff to no liquiprep, I did clear liquid diet and enema. I followed the sched for tapering off all my assorted meds that my anesthetologist and I worked out. I showed up at 7 am for an 8 am kick off, got my IV set, pre-op festivities concluded they rolled me in and gave me versed and whatever else and I woke up in recovery a couple hours later a tiny bit groggy which passed in about 10 minutes. Rolled me back upstairs where I convinced mrAru to nip down to the cafeteria and get me some actual food.

Met the nursing staff while hubbs was out scrounging me lunch, got my first postop vitals taken, and got a pitcher of ice water and a microcan of ginger ale on ice. About an hour after getting sprung from post op, I finished lunch - they make a killer fried chicken in the hospital, not from frozen prefried but fried fresh to order. Nummy. so all I had left to do until they sprung me the next day was piss and crap. I managed to get the cath out after about 6 hours and pissed a couple hours later and by cheating with colace, and a couple snacks of hummus and celery/carrot sticks and a hefty portion of their lentil soup to crap the next morning. Took another couple hours to get sprung and home.

I took a vicodin for the trip home, and after than used motrin. Other than making sure that I did high fiber and lots of water, and avoided straining by coughing or pushing I had no real ill effect from the operation or the assorted meds. I do have a couple small adhesions at what I sort of think of as the corners [upper left quadrant, tucked just up to the diaphragm, upper right quadrant also just up under the diaphragm, and lower right quadrant, about where the right ovary felt like back when I had one and it ovulated painfully. I get pokey/pully/pinchy sensations if I get lax and let myself get slightly constipated] that go along with the lung adhesions from when I had a pneumothorax, but I understand that occasional adhesions are just a common byproduct of someone rumamging around your insides and they are not particularly bothersome.

I did have most everything except the vaginal vault ripped out with extreme prejudice and don’t miss it one bit. I do get a bit of dryness, but common lube works for that and is no big deal. Not bleeding out, the monthly labor pains that feel like someone was reaching in up to their elbows, grabbing a handful of innards and twisting on the way back out and no more hormonal based migraines is worth it. I took it easy, made arrangements for my roomie to bring me lunch and frequent refills on my ice water, didn’t get out of bed other that for the bathroom and walks to the end of the living room and back once an hour for 2 weeks. I would say that I was pretty much back to normal in 2 months. Minimal pain killers, all of 1 vicodin and my normal dosage of motrin. No constipation, lots of fiber and colace, and plenty of ice water. Gentle walking exercise. I justtwish I could have talked the jackasses that insist every woman NEEDS a fucking baby to be complete and refuse to do this small service to make the quality of live improve 1000 percent for a PCOS/endometriosis sufferer into gutting me back in 1984 when I originally had my tubes tied. If I could, I would line every single asshole gyn who insists on that bullshit up in a field somewhere and whack them in the head with a baseball bat. I could have saved almost 30 years of abdominal and migraine torment, not to mention the sanitary products and medications.

Yes, an important thing to remember: to be prepared for things to not go according to plan! Thank you for the reminder, and glad it all worked out for you!

Ha ha, yes, I had come across the HysterSisters website before. Good information, but as you say, a bit on the “treacly” side (very accurate descriptor!). I’ve participated in a few threads over there but wanted to ask here in hopes of getting a more random sample, since I was concerned that that site might draw a preponderance of women who’d had negative experiences.

I have indeed stayed overnight in hospital before, and yes, lip balm and ear plugs will definitely be going into my “kit”!

Very true what the nurse said. I had my appendix out laparoscopically in 2002, and they were very keen to get me up and walking around to (a) prevent DVT, and (b) because moving around encourages the bowels.

Can I get a hallelujah and a second baseball bat? My problems started when I was 12, at my very first period. I didn’t even get a referral to a gynaecologist until I was 27 – the doctors were too busy telling me I’d grow out of it, that the pain wasn’t really that bad, that I should try to conceive (at 16, before I’d ever even had sex), that I was just a drug-seeker (when I was a grungy uni student with purple hair), and that I should have BABIES, BABIES, WHY WON’T YOU HAVE BABIES, YOU WALKING INCUBATOR?

Fast-forward to this year, the 25th anniversary of my first period, and I’ve got stage IV endometriosis, adenomyosis, and an Oxycontin habit. Quality of life, what’s that?

I had mine almost exactly one year ago. Laparoscopic. What was scheduled for a three-hour surgery took more than six. The cyst on my right ovary was far larger than they thought (the size of a football - they drained 1.5 liters of blood out of it before removing it). There were two fibroids on my uterus each the size of a cantaloupe. The entire cavity was threaded with endometrial tissue. Several times during the surgery they stopped to consult about the possibility of going abdomenally, but continued laparoscopically, so that’s why it took so long. I give all sorts of props to my surgical team and the nurses who cared for me.

I spent one night in the hospital, and went home the next day on the good painkillers (Dilaudid). Spent the first few days moving slowly and eating lightly (mostly fruit and toast). By the end of my third week, I was pretty much over all the pain, but I would still get fatigued easily, mostly because the lack of pain made me think I was more recovered than I really was.

Definitely move around as soon as possible, but slowly. If you’re hungry (I wasn’t for the first 30 hours or so), eat lightly. I moved off of the Dilaudid after about three days and just took Advil after that, so pay attention to your pain needs.

I had a laparoscopic hysterectomy a little over a year ago. The incisions were tiny and I can’t even tell where they were now - everything healed great.

It wasn’t bad at all. I stayed overnight in the hospital and got to go home the next day. My own bed never felt so good! I have to say that I was surprised how nice my hospital room was - and the food was good too (I am in the U.S. and I think they are trying to make hospitals more like nice hotels these days).

Pain was minimal. I never took any of the heavy-duty drugs they sent me home with - just a couple of days of regular ibuprofen.

I did get a sundress that was about two sizes too large to wear home from the hospital and was glad I did that.

I never had any excessive tiredness, but I would get sore from sitting for too long - since my job involves sitting for most of the day I was glad to be able to take a month off and think I probably should have taken a little more time than that. I still have some issues with my pelvic floor muscles when I sit too long, but other than that everything’s fine.

Do make sure to follow all the pre- and post-op directions you get to a T. That goes a long way to making everything go easier - don’t overwork yourself, pick up heavy stuff, etc.

I’ve not had a hysterectomy, but am a 4-time C-section veteran, so I’m no stranger to abdominal surgery and recovery.

I second whoever upthread said to avoid getting constipated! A truly wonderful idea! And even if you are eating very healthily, be prepared for your bowels to be a bit… off… for awhile. More gas than you are used to, bowel movements that “sneak up on you” and smell particularly worse than usual.

Also, earplugs and a sleep mask so that you can zone out a little bit better and really ENJOY that morphine drip while it lasts.

You do feel better if you force yourself up and start walking. It also helps get the bowels moving again, to help avoid the forementioned constipation.

Hope that your surgery goes well - be sure to keep us posted! :slight_smile: