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I am 3 weeks post op from my first surgery.  I spent almost two weeks in the hospital after surgery and then came home for 2 days and back in for 3.  Please tell me it gets better!  I have struggled with wondering if I made the right decision.  I have four little boys 6 and under and it was hrs spending half a month away from them.  I still have stomach pains and nausea at times.  When will I start feeling better?!

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Expect for noticeable improvement within 2-3 months post op. You'll see incremental improvements every week, but it may not be very obvious because of minor setbacks.

It is slow. Intolerably slow. My kids were 8 and 10 when I had my surgery. I had a lot of complications and several trips back to the hospital the first year. Now my kids are grown and in retrospect, I did not miss much!

Hang in there!

Jan

Hi All,

I am a 54 year male, living in Michigan. Had UC for 22 years, last year (2016) had sigmoid part colon removed, was diagnosed with non-hodgkin Lymphoma, had 6 cycles of Chemo, in March of this, had total colectomy, was diagnosed with Colon Cancer, had 6 cycles of chemo, On August 4th, I had Ileostomy reversal surgery. Since than I have Rectal pain, and almost 30 BM's/day. When will the trips to the bathroom get better?

Thanks

Hello, Gold.

It may take weeks before your pain and BMs settle down to manageable. Are you using Imodium to control your extreme frequency of BMs? That was the first thing my surgeon told me when I was having too many BMs: Imodium up to 8 tablets per day, no more than that. The pain you are having may be from the surgery because it is very early days post reversal. There is swelling inside and your new plumbing is trying to sort out how to work after weeks or months with an external bag. I had almost 4 months of pain and frequency and leakage before things suddenly settled down on their own. I couldn't sit on the sofa without shooting, fiery pains. My surgeon said that was from swollen tissue, and it did settle down and stop. I didn't take any pain management (remember that pouchers can't take Advil or Motrin) but I did use Imodium for a very short time.

Treat your brand new pouch like a baby, for now, by feeding it soft foods, high protein (to heal the wounded tissues), easily digested, well cooked, and well chewed so your pouch doesn't have to work so hard for now. How is your diet? What are you eating? Sometimes roughage, spicy, sugary foods, carbs, dairy can upset the new pouch.

Thirty times a day is very, very hard on the perianal skin and can lead to fire bum. Are you using a bidet squeeze bottle to clean and rinse, pat dry completely and apply Calmoseptine or Zincofax after each BM?  Don't wait until the burning skin appears, get ahead of it. I had colorectal cancer too.

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