Women who have had D+Cs -- your recovery experiences

In My Humble Opinion
1

This past Wednesday, I had a hysteroscopy and a D+C to figure out what was going on in my uterus that made me spot so much. (My mother has metastatic uterine cancer, so my gyno and I wanted to rule out cancer for me right away.)

So it’s been three days since the procedure and I’m still bleeding and cramping. The discharge papers I got say that bleeding should stop after a week, and cramping should stop after 24-48 hours. The pain is very mild, not even worth taking OTC pain meds for, so I’m not worried but I am wondering when it will go away.

How long did it take for you to go completely back to normal? Did you have any complications? I feel generally run down and sluggish (actually, not unlike the way I feel when I have my period) – did you feel this way, too?
(I also had a hymenectomy done at the same time, so between that and my poor uterus, I am one sore woman.)

2

It’s been 30 years since I had it done, so I don’t remember the finer details. I had no complications at all. I do remember being tired for a few days.

It does seem to me that some people’s inner bits are more sensitive than others. I think your cramping is still within the “ok” window, but IANAD.

Is there any way you could contact the doctor’s office? A nurse on call, perhaps? Just talking to someone might make you feel better.

3

Wow. I’ve had many D&Cs, but never had any issues afterward. I had usually stopped bleeding by the next morning, with no cramping at all.
It wouldn’t hurt to call the Dr. on-call, and ask about it. For your own peace of mind, if nothing else.

4

Well, I’m not really worried, exactly – I’m just curious if my experience is “normal.” The bleeding is actually pretty light (I only need to wear a pantyliner) and it’s getting lighter as the days go by. The cramping too, as I said, is pretty mild. I don’t feel it at all right now, in fact…it’s mostly in the mornings when I wake up.

My nurse stressed that if I develop a fever, have a lot of pain, swelling, an unusual odor, etc. to come right away to the ER, but I have none of those symptoms. I think I’m okay, but I wanted to hear what others had gone through.

For what it’s worth, this was my first surgical procedure ever. If you couldn’t tell. :slight_smile:

5

I had two in the early 90s. One diagnostic with hysteroscopy (due to crazy bleeding… seriously there were maybe 3 days in a month where I didn’t have at least some spotting), and one to resolve a miscarriage (early bleeding, no hCG doubling, no heartbeat). Both times I came out of the anesthesia (IV sedation + amnestic, I think, vs intubation) with wicked cramps - which they treated with strong painkillers.

IIRC, I didn’t have any special bleeding / cramping after the diagnostic one, beyond that day; I’m sure ibuprofen handled it. Since everything got “cleaned out”, I had little bleeding if any (I don’t recall honestly). Oh - and I was on a brief course of hormones (a day or two of something) because they wanted to try to minimize the bleeding pre-procedure, to improve the chances of getting good visuals. That may have reduced the bleeding I had vs what you’re seeing.

After the miscarriage, I did bleed off and on for most of a week, sort of like a regular period. Again, not too much cramping.

Oh - and I felt fine within a day or so after the diagnostic one. The miscarriage was another story but that was more emotional than physical.

6

I had a hysteroscopy, laparoscopy, hsg and D&C all at once last April. I bled for about a week and a half and nearer the second half of that time the discharge turned black-ish (from the anti-clotting agent or something, I think). I cramped for three days, really mild after the first day. I think your experience is fairly normal, but if you’re bleeding a lot (more then a pad every couple of hours), I’d suggest you call the doctor.

7

Same thing for me. I would be following up. There could be something else going on.

8

I’ve had a bunch of D&Cs (one hysteroscopy and polyp removal, the rest miscarriages) and I think I did bleed for a week or two after - very lightly, though. I remember feeling quite crampy in recovery, but I don’t recall feeling anything later. I was kind of blitzed for a day or two after, but I always assumed that had more to do with the general anesthetic than anything else.

9

How are you feeling now, gallows fodder?

10

the actual d&c was unpleasant, in a word, but despite all the drama, there was remarkably little aftereffect. some asprin, sleep, and i was back to work the next day.

i had such a deathgrip on the attending nurse’s hand, i left bruises on her, and i know i cussed out the poor OB at least twice. my cervix is scarred all but closed from really bad mysemorea [sp?] in my youth. pain? oh, you betcha. great og did that hurt!!

it took him three tries to punch through, and had he failed that third time he would have had to call for an ambulance and have me transported to the hospital for the whole on-the-operating-table experience.

what blindsided me was the nausea, even though i was warned there might be some. MIGHT BE SOME?? who knew such a procedure could induce the kind where horking up internal organs seemed like a good idea? :eek:

should i ever have to have one of those done again, i sure as hell won’t be awake for it!

11

No big deal at all…up there with root canal.

12

I had one last year (miscarriage) and based on what you described your situation sounds pretty normal.
I also had some light bleeding for a few days and some mild to slightly intense lower abdominal pain for a few weeks. Once I started getting my periods again (I think it was a about a month later) everything felt more or less the same as before.
I wouldn’t want to go through it again but the aftermath wasn’t as horrible as my paranoid mind anticipated (the stuff that led up to it, however, was much worse).
Hope you’re feeling better now!

13

Thanks for asking! I’m okay, but…I think I may be having my period now. :smack: It’s kind of a weird period because I would imagine that most of my uterine lining would have been eliminated during the D+C, but I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on. I bled from the procedure until Tuesday, Wednesday (yesterday) it finally stopped, and now I’m bleeding (lightly) again.

I’m not worried, though, because for the past couple of days my skin has been kind of bad and I’ve been very hungry, which are classic PMS signs for me. My cycle is so irregular I can’t go by the date of my last period, but for what it’s worth, it was January 3-8, so it’s not impossible that this could be another one. (In any other woman, it would be like, “OF COURSE DUH – it was exactly a month ago!” But I’m so irregular that even in the very rare occurrence when I do have periods two months in a row, it’s more on the lines of 40-50 days apart, not 28.)

Anyway, I otherwise feel fine, I’m bleeding very lightly (definitely not hemorrhaging or anything), and I do have a follow-up appointment scheduled with my OBGYN on Feb. 16. I’m still a bit sore from the hymenectomy, but I was told that it could take 2-4 weeks to heal completely, so I feel okay about that, too.

Scubaqueen, your account almost made me cry! I can’t imagine going through all that! I was completely knocked out during the procedure, thank goodness. I have a history of vaginal pain and was terrified that I would be awake or semi-conscious during the procedure and thus able to feel the pain of the cervical dilation, which I imagined to feel like what the usual vaginal pain feels like x 1000. So I don’t know if it’s SOP around here to put you out for a D+C (because apparently a hymenectomy can be done under merely local anesthesia, so it wouldn’t have been for that) or because I had expressed my concerns about the pain to my doctor beforehand.

If anybody has to have a D+C in the future, I would strongly suggest asking to be put under with IV sedation first – you’re completely unconscious and don’t feel a thing.

Thanks for your replies, everyone!

14

Oops, in the second paragraph, I should have said, “In many other women…” because I know well that cycle irregularity is not at all uncommon.

15

Glad to hear you’re feeling better, gallows fodder! Ah,the joys of irregular periods… I remember them well. :smiley:

Oh, believe me, if i EVER have to have a D&C again in my lifetime, I’ll make arrangements for IV sedation. Had I known what to expect I would’ve done so beforehand.

Nobody - including the OB - thought it was going to be that bad. The scarring was much worse than orginally thought. Lessons learned the hard way, but hey, done and over with.

16

I’m just stunned that ANY doctor would do a D&C without sedation. Really, I think it’s got to be the product of medical “training” that marginalizes women and treats us as unfeeling objects who don’t DESERVE pain relief. Egad. Who the FUCK thinks this is an acceptable way to do things.

And I knew of someone who had a (botched) D&C to try to resolve an incomplete miscarriage… also without sedation. She wound up bleeding so profusely she had to have a transfusion.

I also knew someone who had a hysteroscopy in-office. I wish I’d know about that beforehand, I could have really pushed her to insist on sedation. It was, I gather, pretty uncomfortable.

Of course, I come at this from the standpoint of nearly passing out from the doctor attempting an endometrial biopsy in-office. That cervix was NOT opening up for anything, it was painful as hell, the doctor had to give up the attempt. Then I tried to stand up and get dressed and the room started swirling.

17

Weird that you’re expected to be so sore for so long after that. Those of us who had it done the “old fashioned way”… well, the residual soreness didn’t last more than a day or so for me.

18

I’d rather have a D&C than another root canal.

Of course, both of my D&Cs were done with adequate sedation. Only one of the root canals had adequate pain relief. The other root canal, well… if offered the chance to choose between childbirth (without adequate anesthesia) and root canal (ditto), not sure which one would “win”.

19

Well, I was told to avoid sticking anything up there for that long, so I was assuming they meant because of soreness/healing, but it might just be to reduce risk of infection? All I know is, it’s been a week and I’m still sore! I’m crossing all my fingers that the soreness is just due to the procedure, and I don’t have vulvar vestibulitis like I had feared. Because that would suck royally.