How to get fit for abdominal surgery, please?

[Trickysite]

Anyone on here with Ovarian Cancer? Do you knows London physio or doctor specialising in getting EDS patients fit for major abdominal surgery? Ihave just had my third cycle of chemo for ovarian cancer at UCLH hospital. Operation my be, now or after 6th chemo cycle.

[BJ_UK]

Hi, Trickysite. You probably don't need an answer to this any more, and I don't really have one for you anyway.

I just wanted to let you know that I have had ovarian cancer too - ten years ago now - and have Ehlers-Danlos hypermobility type, though this had not been officially diagnosed at the time.

The only problems I had with the operation arose from the fact that they breached my dura when giving me a pre-op epidural for post-op pain relief. The only symptom they told me to watch out for was a really bad headache - guess which symptom I didn't have! I did suffer from muffled hearing from the morning after the operation and 11 days post-op I developed extremely severe double vision. The double vision was because I had developed a severe sixth cranial nerve palsy. This continued to give me problems for the next two and a half years, at which point I had an operation to rebalance my eye muscles so that I regained depth perception and lost the double vision. Unfortunately the surgical staff didn't know any more about possible symptoms from a breached dura than I did, so they didn't ask the anaesthetist for help, which could have been effective and spared me two years plus of problems, had I been treated with a blood patch soon after the operation. So just be wary of muffled hearing and/or double vision after having an epidural and insist on seeing the anaesthetist if you develop these symptoms!

I hope that you are doing well and have had your op by now.

Best wishes for the future!

Barbara