Getting a Laparoscopy Finally- Pre-op questions

[cabbage12]

Hi everyone.

Hope you are all doing well.

Sorry for such a long post but I needed to get it out of my system, There are some questions at the bottom I promise.

So I had a bit of an eventful time at the end of last week.

On Thursday I Woke up at 6.30 am with severe lower abdominal pain, nausea, pressure type pain and very bloated tummy. Put it off to being on my period ( first in a year due to different hormonal treatments) and went back to sleep. Woke at 8.30 am with abdo pain much worse. Was then sick at 11am and 3 times afterwards. The oain continued to increase to the point I was crying. Mum finally convinced me to see my GP. Once i got there He could see how much pain I was in. I was also spiking a temp at 38.6 will feeling cold, tachy at 117, and slightly hypertensive from my norm. He then contacted the on call gyni at FVRH ( my local hospital). The On call gyni originally wanted to fob me over to general surgery thinking it my appendix but that was removed 7 years ago. But they listened to my GP and originally wanted me taken in an ambulance but my mum was waiting outside for me. After getting to the hospital at 5.30pm, i was shown to a examination room by myself as my mum had to stay with my siblings, I then waited over 3 hours in agony to be seen or given any form of pain relief, My mum was like a proper mother hen ranting to the nurses for me to be seen or given some form of pain relief. By this point my pain was the worse it had ever been.Never felt pain like it. The doctor finally can round and he was lovely and the nurse gave me some paracetamol and Ibuprofen. Took my history, bloods, then did the normal examination. Internal exam was the worse it's ever been( normally I just get pain afterwards, but was extremely painful throughout). They couldn't find anything abnormal at the time so booked me a scan for the next day. BY this time it was 10pm I was given the option of staying over night or going home and see I how I get on. I decided to go home and see how i could do knowing that I could call the ward if need be.

I wasn't home for more than an hour before I was crying in pain unable to get to comfortable to sleep because of the pain. I called the gyni ward ( a sign to my dad of how unwell I was as I hate speaking on phones) who said to come back up. I was readmitted at midnight to the gyni ward and given oramorph 4 times overnight to try and control the pain. I got about 1-2 hours relief from it, which allowed me to get some sleep but it made me really nauseous the next day.

The next morning I saw one of the consultant who was lovely and has decided to put me on their waiting list for Laparoscopy to get to the bottom of my pain whether it's gyni related or not and treat anything he sees but he's expecting to see some endo. He says I could be waiting anything from 6 weeks to 3 months. I had an internal ultrasound, again was a really uncomfortable procedure, which they say was normal so I was discharged.

Now I am just waiting to hear when my surgery will be and to be honest it can't come sooner. I just want to get the bottom of it. This was the first time I have every been hospitalized because of my pain and I have to say it scared not only me but my whole family especially my mum and dad to the point I think they might now understand how my pain affects me.

Now questions!

I signed the consent form while in hospital and had the procedure and kind of plan explained to me by the consultant, will I still get a pre-op assessment or not?

What have your experiences of laps been? I had one when I was 15 for an appendicitis but that was as in inpatient, I have never had outpatient experience.

Really random question for the future- do I need to shave/ trim down there before the surgery?

If you have reached the end, well done and thank you.

[Hidden]

I have had 2 laps and really positive experiences of both, recovered really well even though endo was removed during both so they weren't just exploratory ops.

You are most likely to have a pre op for bloods to be taken, weight, blood pressure etc.

I think they prefer you not to shave too close to your op date in case you cut yourself, they don't like open wounds due to the risk of infection. You could maybe use something like Veet if you'd like to?

xxx

[Zee73]

Hi there,

Reading your mail while waiting to be discharged after my lap yday.Please try not to worry as the actual procedure and recovery is a lot less stressful than the waiting.I had a salpingectom,cystectomy and adhelyosis for my endo at 8:30 am yday,was walking by 5pm and going to the toilet...pain is very manageable.Preop was blood tests,weight height and talking with the anaesthetic and getting two enemas(nothing to worry about).My nurse gave me a dry shave before the surgery.Hope all goes well for you

[llc1987]

i had a trim but I wish I had waxed or shaved completely...dressings were well stuck down!