I'm a month post-op today. I can get around OK, but still have a lot of pain, which at this point I think has more to do with a previous surgery in my groin area six years ago than anything else. I suffered through a botched heart catheterization procedure in which they nicked a secondary artery and I ended up having to get surgery to remove a huge abcess six weeks later. I walked with a limp for almost two years after that. The surgeon did a great job of working around that area and the scar, but that side is swelled up way more than the other side and really hurts. If I don't sit up or walk around too much, the swelling goes down and I'm fine, so I spend a lot of time lying on my sofa these days...

Anyway, just wondering how long most of you took to recover fully. My job requires wrangling rather large pieces of electronic equipment, so it may be a while before I'm able to do my job fully again. I go back to my doc for a re-eval on the 5th.

~Ceili

It's pretty much variable how quickly you come up to speed.
In any case, you should avoid any heavy lifting for quite a while.
There are some similarities here to a hernia operation.

I was lucky and started working 15 hour/weeks at 7 weeks post-op.
Over time that has ramped up to 40 hours/week.
This happened naturally and wasn't done at my request.
Fortunately, my job involves standing all the time which I much preferred to sitting.
I refuse to lift 25 pounds.

Working and dilating can basically fill up your day.
It will be your life for a while.

Your mileage will vary. For me 6 months to function well a year to regain my old self.

About 2 months, but I don't have heavy lifting (except for a suitcase when we travel).

At the 4-month mark, I returned for labiaplasty, which left me uncomfortable for another 6 weeks or so.

Wrt dilating: At 9+ years postop, I dilate twice a week and expect to do so forever.  Not going to have an organic dilator in this lifetime.

Robyn

Wow... This is going to be a wild ride.

I went to a wedding today. My partner's friends, I didn't know anyone and I really did not feel up to going but didn't have much of a choice. I made it through the ceremony though I felt like I was close to passing out at one point. I didn't make it through the reception at all. It was at a hotel and before the happy hour was even over, before dinner, I ended up lying down in the car out in the parking garage. I wish my SO would have listened to me and not given me crap about staying home. Everything is so swelled up down there now, it looks like it did when I was a week post-op.

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Post Merge: September 19, 2009, 08:34:20 PM

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Quote from: Robyn on September 19, 2009, 11:23:18 AMWrt dilating: At 9+ years postop, I dilate twice a week and expect to do so forever.  Not going to have an organic dilator in this lifetime.

Robyn

LOL, I hear you on that one!

It was close to 6 months for me for full recovery.  I had some minor complications with bleeding after I returned home from Thailand.  I've got no problems with the organic dilators but I still dilate religiously using the plastic ones.

I returned to work after two weeks, about 25 hours a week.  At three months, I was pretty much back to normal.  I was in very good physical condition going into GRS and I believe that helped a lot.  Sounds like I was luckier than many here.

I'm only 4 months post-op.  I returned to work last month.  I'm  ok for the most part but I still have some spotting & discomfort when I'm in a sitting position for longer periods of time.  Though the kind of work I do doesn't require any kind physical activity, there's no way I could have gone back after only a few weeks.

Your posts are making me feel much better. I've been worried, despite my surgeon and his staff (who is excellent by the way) telling me it was going to be a long road.

I am pretty healthy. I am very active physically (well, I WAS!) but I have a nasty little heart defect that makes things difficult at times. My surgery was originally supposed to happen in October, but I had to get medical clearance from my cardiologist and my GP because of my heart. I did so and then found out the clearance was only valid for two months, due to the nature of my heart disease which is genetic and can take a downturn very quickly and even spiral into congestive heart failure. So we quickly changed plans and I went to Thailand immediately. When I got to Thailand I had to undergo further medical clearance from their cardiologist. I was worried sick about not getting clearance once I got there, but I was OK. In fact I have now actually been taken off of my beta blocker because my blood pressure is consistently much lower now that I am post-op. My low number is usually very high because my left and right ventricle work against each other. My GP thinks this may be because the major stress in my life is now over. I was in a catch 22 -- stressed about being in a race to get the money together for SRS before my heart degraded to where I would be ineligible for surgery and that same stress being very hard on my heart. Let's just say I am overjoyed to be post-op, no matter how long it takes me to recover.

~Ceili

When I went in for GRS last March I was a month shy of my 58th birthday.  At four months post-op I was beginning to feel pretty much back to normal.  My GF reminded me that the last surgery took about four months before coming around.

I'm talking about a general sense of well being when I say coming around.  But even at four months post I was still experiencing some discomfort, especially when sitting and leaning forward.  At six months there's still noticeable swelling in front and any pressure there is uncomfortable.  Other than that I can do almost anything I did before. 

What I did notice was as my dilation ramped down, the comfort level went up.  My GF said it was the same for her too.

Julie

3 months.

Quote from: Natasha on September 20, 2009, 11:51:31 AM
3 months.

wow 3months, everybody is different, I remember Id a lot of pain and discomfort, then Id a labiaplasty under a local anesthetic about 3months after srs, the stitches where quite sore, then I had incontinence problems requiring me to wear diapers nappies, it took me over a year to heal, but when I finally healed it was just great to get out of bed in the morning and face the world, look in a mirror and see Im finally a complete woman at last.

I'm curious to know what exactly it is that makes going back to work take possibly months? I had FFS, which itself is a major surgery, and was back to work within 2 weeks (both times, I split it into 2 surgeries), and if you count just the time after being back home, I was back to work usually a day or two after arriving back home.

Is there something about SRS that makes you more fatigued for a longer period of time? I don't lift anything or do any physical work at all since I'm a programmer. I sit on my bum all day, so to think that it would take months for me to be ok to just sit on my bum sounds strange. Is there anyone else who has an office job where they pretty much just sit around all day that has had SRS and can tell me how long it took to get back to work, and if it took a long time, why?

Thanks!
~Sarah

Quote from: SarahR on September 21, 2009, 01:43:25 PM
I'm curious to know what exactly it is that makes going back to work take possibly months? I had FFS, which itself is a major surgery, and was back to work within 2 weeks (both times, I split it into 2 surgeries), and if you count just the time after being back home, I was back to work usually a day or two after arriving back home.

Is there something about SRS that makes you more fatigued for a longer period of time? I don't lift anything or do any physical work at all since I'm a programmer. I sit on my bum all day, so to think that it would take months for me to be ok to just sit on my bum sounds strange. Is there anyone else who has an office job where they pretty much just sit around all day that has had SRS and can tell me how long it took to get back to work, and if it took a long time, why?

Thanks!
~Sarah

Abdominal surgery is much more invasive than FFS. There are muscles and flesh that must be cut into, that are key to doing things like lifting and walking. At over a month post-op, I cannot sit for more than a few minutes on a hard chair, nor more than an hour on something very soft, without a lot of pain and swelling. I cannot lift more than a few pounds without feeling like I'm pulling something in the groin area. I made the mistake of lifting a gallon of milk last night and it was a big mistake. Those muscles need to heal or you can tear and stress them.

My job is very unique. I actually do some programming as part of my job, but mostly I work on very large pieces of electronic equipment, with big shelves, power supplies with transformers that weigh up to 1,000 lbs or more, rack-mounted equipment that weighs upwards of 80 lbs, and trekking around from building to building in the middle of what pretty much amounts to a big rural field of 100 acres or more to work on some of it. I'm definitely not going to be ready for any of that for a while.

Thanks Ceili for the response. So I guess my next question would be, how does your work schedule around you being gone for a month or more? I'm going to be taking 2, maybe 3 weeks off for the surgery, but any more than that and it'll have to be unpaid. Moreover, it would really hinder my company and my projects if I had to be gone for a month or more.

What do you girls do to get around this? My only other option would have to be maybe working from home for 2 or 3 weeks once I come back I guess.

~Sarah

Quote from: ceili on September 21, 2009, 02:59:04 PM
Abdominal surgery is much more invasive than FFS. There are muscles and flesh that must be cut into, that are key to doing things like lifting and walking. At over a month post-op, I cannot sit for more than a few minutes on a hard chair, nor more than an hour on something very soft, without a lot of pain and swelling. I cannot lift more than a few pounds without feeling like I'm pulling something in the groin area. I made the mistake of lifting a gallon of milk last night and it was a big mistake. Those muscles need to heal or you can tear and stress them.

In some cases, however many ab surgeries can be done using key hole methods (Arthroscopic surgery) much less invasive.

-={LR}=-

Quote from: SarahR on September 21, 2009, 04:04:33 PM
Thanks Ceili for the response. So I guess my next question would be, how does your work schedule around you being gone for a month or more? I'm going to be taking 2, maybe 3 weeks off for the surgery, but any more than that and it'll have to be unpaid. Moreover, it would really hinder my company and my projects if I had to be gone for a month or more.

What do you girls do to get around this? My only other option would have to be maybe working from home for 2 or 3 weeks once I come back I guess.

~Sarah

My job is very unique. I am currently being paid, but I have also been on call 24/7 for nearly two years with no break, so part of this is comp. My boss is doing my job right now, and I am sure finding out more and more what I've had to put up with for the last two years since the two others who used to rotate call with me quit and they didn't replace them.

Other than that... Right now I am working on a software project, which is another thing I do for the company from time to time. That I can do from my sofa on my laptop. When I come back in a few weeks it will likely be part-time and I will have an assistant to lift and do all the dirty work for me, I'll be the brains directing him what to do.

Aside from all that.... We built in about a months worth of salary for me in savings before I went to Thailand.

what about driving type jobs? How long would one have to be off before one could drive pretty much continuously for say 2-3 hours?

I was 24 and very fit when I had surgery (35 years ago!) and planned on 8 weeks but it didn't work out that way. I was out shopping on the 5th day, back home on the 6th. I laid around home for four weeks, got bored, found a job, and started work at 7 weeks (the week after having sex the first time).

I have to say I can not remember having any significant pain after abut the 3rd day - oh I was a bit sore, but certainly not in pain.

Quote from: Northern Jane on September 21, 2009, 07:50:42 PM
I was 24 and very fit when I had surgery (35 years ago!) and planned on 8 weeks but it didn't work out that way. I was out shopping on the 5th day, back home on the 6th. I laid around home for four weeks, got bored, found a job, and started work at 7 weeks (the week after having sex the first time).

I have to say I can not remember having any significant pain after abut the 3rd day - oh I was a bit sore, but certainly not in pain.

That's what I'm hoping for, lol. That's where I am now, 24 and in good health and I have doubts that I'll actually need more than the 3 weeks. Of course, I'm going to now plan for maybe being gone for longer, but I'm hoping I can have it easy.