Horrid bloating 3 weeks after laparoscopy

[Gill1977]

Hello- hope it's a good day for you all.

I had lap surgery on 16th december. No endo found but had scar tissue removed under c-section and appendix scars.

My question is- is it normal to be bloated badly 3 weeks after surgery? I'm quite fit and was told that I'd be able to exercise (low impact) around now so have started doing so (it's a struggle!). My stomach gets bigger and bigger throughout the day. Have I just irritated things with exercise? I'm about 5 days before my period is due and often bloat- but not this badly. Last night I was in quite a bit of pain and sitting down felt like someone was shoving my insides up inside my body.

Any advice would be totally appreciated.

Gill xx

[luthien]

Hi, the bloating and pain can be quite bad for the first month or so as your body recovers, it took me about 4 weeks to feel better. I did go back to light exercise at about 3 weeks and found it did help, even just mentally so stick at it. Just listen to your body, and stop if it's in pain during exercise, or try different things.

I found yoga when starting back to be really good as you can feel which areas hurt and what needs stretching. Do twice as much warming up and cooling down than you normally would and take things slowly; you won't be your normal fitness level for a good few more weeks yet. I now see an aromatherapy and massage specialist for before my periods to help with the pain and tension, that really helps too!

Your specialist should have mentioned to expect the first few periods to be a bit worse than before and than expected as your body is still healing; the uterus doesn't like being moved around so our cycles can irritate it. Even if no endo was removed they still need to move organs around to remove your scar tissue and these organs need to naturally move back into place which can take weeks, during this time bloating does happen.

x

[Gill1977 in reply to luthien]

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. Really appreciated. Struggling with the whole thing if I'm honest. Still don't know what the heck is wrong with me (feel like I've assaulted my body for nothing) and exercise is my therapy. X

[asoullessstatic]

Same as farahziya - took about 4 weeks to really recovery properly, I started back at karate last night and struggled a little. I could feel where they had cut through muscle under the incisions.

While the cuts on the outside are small, they go all the way through you into your abdominal space, which means theres muscles and membranes they've cut through. These can take some time to heal, and inflammation and bloating is part of that sadly. I'm just gone 5 weeks post op this week and it's starting to settle now.

[Gill1977 in reply to asoullessstatic]

Its reassuring to know that its "normal". I can't remember how I recovered in my previous 3 laps - I'm much older and have had a c section and another baby since my last lap- plus I'm fitter so had no idea what to expect.

Feeling like this, with a period due and all the same symptoms I went into surgery with doesn't exactly make you feel the best.

Thank you so so much for listening xxx