Had my lap 3 weeks ago

[BrightLights88]

Quick Question, I had my lap 15th aug went amazingly well. Recovered and was on my feet by the first week. I have stage 4.

I have gone back to work on monday doing only 4 hours it's a office desk job but a lot of mentoring and moving around normally but at the moment I'm restricted and doing light duties by the gp.

My incisions have started to fall off by the end of week2. Only have the belly button that hasn't yet fallen off. But I'm getting on and off pains in the incisions area where the stitches have fallen off and healed from the outside. Is this normal?

[Christin_a]

Hello. It's probably just that it's still healing on the inside. It's hard to remember that although the outside may have healed inside is still healing and does take alot longer than the skin itself.

[BrightLights88 in reply to Christin_a]

I guess so, all of the incision glue have fallen off now. Just left with small scars. Would you recommend to take painkillers during these hours that I have pain? I came home from work then had a nap felt a lot better without taking any pain relief.

[DEvangeline in reply to BrightLights88]

Always take painkillers if you need them. Don’t let your body get to the point when you’re in so much pain & don’t have any medication in your system. Just keep topped up for now xx

[luthien]

Wow, good to hear you're recovering well.

Are the pains directly under the incision area? Or does it feel like a bit further in? If that makes sense? There are quite a few layers of tissue to cut between the skin and the abdomen including muscle layers (our abs), each layer needs to be stitched up separately, so there's dissolvable stitches in each layer. These muscles can often take a little longer to heal as the tissue needs to close up and then form new muscle - so there may be random stabbing pains as the new muscle fibres are forming and connecting (starting to contract and move).

By the way my "inside" incisions took about 4 months to completely heal where the muscle felt normal. I can still feel an indent (a year on) where my incision is in my skin and another one on the muscle layer.

[BrightLights88 in reply to luthien]

Hi yeah the pains come and go mainly around the incision areas. just small throbbing.I was off pain relief with the first 5 days. As I no longer felt I needed them as the pain was bearable in sense that only felt pain when sitting etc.

Ok I see now. It's really hard to realise how deep they have cut through the skins coz you would think because it's just left with a scar from the outside everything has healed but j guess it hasn't. Thanks for your reply. x