Bowel adhesions - recovery time?

[Kangalou]

Hi all,

I had a hysterectomy in August 2018. I had endometriosis and adenomyosis. I kept one ovary.

I’ve since had a ‘blood filled cyst’ (endometrioma?) which has been causing me some pain, bloating and I’ve generally been feeling systemically unwell.

I had a follow up operation ten days ago where the surgeon (who performed my hysterectomy) removed the cyst. I had a very short conversation with him afterwards where he confirmed that my ovary was ‘completely stuck fast’ to my bowel. He’d sorted that as part of the op and said he’d scattered something in my pelvis to try to prevent more adhesions. I don’t know whether the adhesions were endometriosis or surgical - but my guess is surgical (as I think he’d have mentioned more endo).

I’d had previous laparoscopy for endo treatment and obviously had my hysterectomy recently. But I’ve found the recovery from this SO hard. Much harder than the hysterectomy.

In short, I’m still in quite a bit of pain, knackered, struggling to eat and feeling sick a lot (possibly due to the painkillers?). My surgeon was quite upbeat about my recovery and said I should be able to get back to work without a phased return within two weeks. This means I should be back at work in 72 hours.

There is no way I’m fit.

I feel like a massive failure, that I should be much better and that I’m just weak with a low pain threshold.

On the other hand, I have had three laparoscopies in 18 months which I feel might be making my recovery slower, with plenty of scar tissue around to make things that bit harder.

Because the bowel adhesion was unexpected, I don’t know how big/small that procedure is and whether I should expect to be in this much pain?

Can anyone advise?

Thanks in advance !

[BendyClare]

I just had endo excision and bowel adhesions removed 4 weeks ago. I wasn’t fit for work (desk job) till 2 weeks later, and I only returned part time. It was at least three weeks till I was even starting to beginning to feel normal.

[Hidden]

Hi, sorry to hear that you’re not feeling so good.. I had a laparoscopy 11th sept to have both ovaries removed due to endometriosis and cysts, I had been suffering years of problems with bowels leading up to both my ops , (I had hysterectomy in 2016) so during my op they found that both my ovaries were fused to bowel, left one ‘very messy’ in surgeons words and right one had cysts on also ‘messy’ and the whole lot fused to pelvic wall

They separated what they needed to and removed my ovaries along with othe endo and nodules.

Since my op in September I also like you feel my recovery has been very slow I feel exhausted, in pain (back,legs,neck, arms) and still have bowel issues and left side pain. I’m just in the process of starting a 4 week phased return as I feel I need some rountine back in my life but I’m scared as I really am still struggling so not sure I can manage ( I work in a school nursery)

Feeling really fed up too, sorry I couldn’t give you positives