I posted this in the other thread on this topic:
JPouch in Seattle,
Takedown wasn’t too bad for me although I did have a few issues.
The area where the stoma is was not stitched and was allowed to heal by granulation. This due to the infection risk. This takes a long time to fully heal, and I was on activity restrictions for a while.
I also had dietary restrictions. I started with soft foods and gradually assumed a full diet. I was told to eat salty/high sodium foods because you will have electrolyte imbalance while the J Pouch adjusts to being a surrogate colon. Initially it’s not as good as the colon in regulating electrolytes, so you will need to be very mindful of proper hydration. Dehydration is a major possible complication.
Butt burn was a problem for many months after takedown. This is due to increased alkalinity of stool. The J Pouch takes some time to adjust the pH of the stool. Eventually it does but again this is another function of the colon your body must adapt to and it takes time.
After surgery there is a risk of blockages/obstructions. I did have a couple and I feel they were caused by over-ambitious eating coupled with postsurgical swelling and adhesions. Eventually these cleared after I started vomiting. In other words, the act of vomiting cleared the obstruction. My advice to you is just really take it slow with your diet even if you feel great, eat small quantities of food, and add one new food at a time so that you can isolate problem foods. Problem foods for me were raw carrots, spinach, mushrooms. These were just hard to digest and I could only have small quantities of them. Now I can eat anything and any quantity.
Good luck!