Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Sorry if this is in the wrong thread! It seems like whenever I want to post about a hysterectomy it's confusing where I should even put it  :o

I'm getting a laparoscopic hysterectomy this coming Wednesday, and I can only really rely on the experiences from biological women and very few videos on youtube that are more recent than the ones from 3 years ago. I'd like to know what you guys went through.

How many nights did you spend in the hospital (if you had to)?
How was your pain overall and when did it slow down for you?
How are you feeling mentally/physically now?
Etc. etc.

In hospital for a matter of hours and off work for a couple days. Pain was minimal. As you can see below, that was a few years back.

I had the (laparascopic) hysterectomy in combination with the colpectomy/vaginectomy (whatever the correct name is), so a little different than yours. But most of my 'problems' were caused by the colpectomy.

I spend three nights at the hospital. Check in on thursday because I had to have an enema in the evening. My surgery was sceduled for fridaymorning and I got to go home sunday morning. (But that was mostly because I had to get used to the catheter, I had to keep it in for two weeks 'cause of a colpectomy complication) Chances are that without the catheter I could've gone home saturday afternoon.

Pain was minimal for me. My right shoulder did hurt because of the gas that's pumped into your belly during surgery. But this wasn't a big problem, got worse after sitting upright/standing for a while or when I'd laugh. But this only lasted 'till monday, so no more than three days in total.

Hardly had any abdominal pain, though I did take the painkillers subscribed for about a week after surgery, just to be on the safe side. 

Now I'm about 4,5 weeks post op and overall I'm feeling fine. Really the only problems I still have are caused by the colpectomy. All the incisions on my abdomin have healed nicely and theres no pain whatsoever. Haven't noticed any mental changes besides maybe the going crazy for not being able to go to work yet and being bored ;)

Spend the first week indoors, because one of the surgeons suggested that, to prevent doing too much. There's a good chance you'll feel fine so you need to be carefull not to forget that you've had surgery.

My experience with bleeding won't be any help to you but I know a lot of guys who've had the hysterectomy and bleeding could be minimal (no more than a week) or can last up to six weeks or maybe even more. When in doubt, always contact the hospital first. A sudden increase of (bright red) blood loss after a few weeks is possible 'cause of internal stitches dissolving.

I had a laparoscopic assisted vaginal hysterectomy with a bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. Two incisions, one in the belly button and one on the pubic bone. They cut everything free inside, opened the top of the V and took everything out through my downstairs then sewed it up at the top. Took about 2 hours.

I went to the hospital at 8am and left around 3pm the same day.

I didn't have any pain. I was a little sore for the first day, but never in any pain. Light bleeding for the first three days. The hospital gave me pads to take home and I didn't need more than they gave me. No issues with the incision sites.

I feel good. It helped a lot of the anxiety I had related to shark week. It was done as a prerequisite for bottom surgery for me. I didn't have any strong feelings about it all either way, but it is nice to never have to worry about random bleeding.

I had TLH-BSO last year.  Took about 6 weeks before I was cleared to resume all activities.  The gas pains were worse than I expected, and constipation was bad because I made the mistake of eating bread at my last permitted meal.  Never again, from now on it's applesauce only before surgery and after, LOL. At approx 3 wks, bleeding increased a lot and big clots were passing. Had to go to an urgent care appt and have an emergency pelvic exam and some gunk put on internally to seal the incision.  The pelvic exam was more physically painful than most of the surgery recovery.  Even though there wasn't much pain the hysto took a lot more out of me and affected me more energy-wise than chest surgery did. Took a much longer time to get back in shape physically. 

One more thing, now that it's cold and flu season I am experiencing some stress incontinence when I cough, which never happened before the hysto.  Looking online I see that this is a common symptom.

Good thing I have lower surgery coming up this year bc it's not fun having to change my boxers because my bladder wasn't all the way empty when I coughed.  :-(  Tho I think stress incontinence happens with UL too, at least during initial recovery? Well I'll find out, won't I? 

If they warned me about this I don't remember it. 

I was initially scheduled for laparoscopic surgery but then the Dr. told me she was able to remove everything vaginally and there were no external scars or healing which made the process so much easier.  I didn't even know that was an option? 

Quote from: VictorMike on January 13, 2017, 04:13:22 PM
I was initially scheduled for laparoscopic surgery but then the Dr. told me she was able to remove everything vaginally and there were no external scars or healing which made the process so much easier.  I didn't even know that was an option?

Yep. This page has a great infographic that explains the logic used to determine the best type of hysterectomy for a patient:

http://contemporaryobgyn.modernmedicine.com/contemporary-obgyn/content/tags/gynecologic-surgery/selecting-route-hysterectomy-structured-approach (http://contemporaryobgyn.modernmedicine.com/contemporary-obgyn/content/tags/gynecologic-surgery/selecting-route-hysterectomy-structured-approach)