Pain after PD Catheter surgery

Just curious on anyone’s experience with pain after their access surgery. My surgery and recovery went excellent, but I ended up in the ER the day after due to 2 bouts of severe chest and shoulder pain. The doc said it wasn’t a cardiac issue, but likely thoracic nerve pain from the surgery. Scary and painful but luckily not a heart attack. And wow - Changing positions from laying to standing is really hard to do, lots of discomfort even moving very slowly. Can’t wait to heal!

[OperationKidney]

I had similar pain to what you are describing. The shoulder pain is a common post-op side effect called referred pain and it comes from the air they have to use to inflate the peritoneal lining during surgery (they do that in order to make it easier to see where the lining is). Sometimes when they deflate the lining they don't quite get all of the air and some of it travels up to the shoulder and neck area. It definitely is painful so you have everything right to be frightened by it, but it isn't life-threatening. As for moving around after surgery that isn't easy either. You don't realize how much you use your abs in every day life until you can't! But the more you're able to move the sooner all that pain will disappear. Good luck with PD, it was a great experience for me and I hope the same for you.

[Darlenia]

I feel for you. I agree with Tesslafera that your shoulder pain may be from trapped air that will dissipate after a period of time. My husband recently received a PD port and was warned about this possibly happening. Lucky for him, his surgery went smoothly and he experienced no negative after effects. On the other hand, prior to PD, my husband had problems with his HD port which needed "corrective surgery". Medicare came down hard and had the surgery center do the "fix" without charge. So, if you're on Medicare, it appears Medicare is very watchful.

[arcefam]

Hi there, Yes definitely air and it goes away quickly. My wife told me now you know how it feels to have a C-section I couldn’t move for 2 days or cough or laugh it would hurt but all good now 2 years of PD. Hope you feel better 😎