Hemorrhoidectomy - Tips for recovery

Hey all,

Well I’m on day 25 now, and before I start to forget all the things that helped me, I will write them down for you all. I scoured the internet, read some real horror stories - but I am now through it and hopefully this might give you some hope and help as you recover. I am pretty much better, taking painkillers very occasionally (once per day, if at all).

I’ll skip the day by day recap (there's enough of those out there!) and give you what I think might be helpful tips.

There are some real horror stories out there, and it’s definitely not a nice thing to go through, but you can get through it. Think of how many success stories there are, but just not put on the internet. Only the horror stories seem to make it on. Hope my positive story and tips help.

My situation:

- I had grade 3 hemmorhoids removed.. big ones. Surgery, not banding.

- Drugs: Targin (Oxycontin and something else) for 5 days, along with 1000g paracetamol + 400mg ibuprofen. Movicol twice a day to ease the constipation effects.

- Day 12 I went back to work in the office. Not great, but I had to do it. Used paracetamol + codeine as painkillers, which helped. Also, I think moving around actually helped. Because from day 12 onwards I was getting stronger and stronger, and my recovery picked up a great deal. So maybe forcing myself off my backside and moving around a bit helped. But I’m not sure, could be coincidence. 

- Day 15 I was able to sit without pain! I’d usually have a painkiller but up until this point that would not have got rid of the pain or the uncomfortableness. But from this day, I started to have bouts of feeling “normal”

- Day 25: Slight uncomfortble-ness, but not too bad at all. I’m able to sit, swim etc. But am careful not to exert or lift heavy things. When I do that, my bum hurts! Every day is better.. hopefully soon it will be all better.

So on to my tips.

My tip for the first day:

Even if you can’t feel anything, don’t do much: in retrospect I did too much moving around when I couldn’t feel a thing, thinking everything was ok… they put a nerve block in, so I couldn’t feel a thing. Moving around was probably a bad idea, next time (hopefully there won’t be one!) I will just lie down and watch some movies. I probably aggravated the rawness down there which may have made it worse later on. In the evening I started my first Targin tablets (this is Oxycodone and something else to stop the constipation effect of the Oxy). I had 5 days worth of these to see me through the worst (however I needed longer.. more on that later), and Movicol to also help counter the constipation (twice a day).

My tip for taking the meds?

I took the Targin (Oxycodone) for the first 5 days.. but also at the same time every 4 hours I took Ibuprofen + Parecetamol (Tylenol in the USA I think). None of those interact with each other, so it was safe to take all of them.

- Don’t miss taking them!! A couple of times I went past the 4 hour mark, thinking that everything felt a bit better.. big mistake - I would get crippled with pain as they wore off - I would take Ibuprofen + parecetamol immediately when this happened but it takes some time to act, so I would be in more pain than I needed to be in. So for the first 10 days or so, keep taking them all.

- When my Targin ran out, I went back to my pre-op meds which I had: Panadeine Forte (Paracetamol + codeine).. I took 500mg of those when I woke up, along with 400mg Ibuprofen.. because I knew I had to poop (usually did in the morning). This seemed to help. Then as time went on (day 14 or so onwards) I wouldn’t need to take them in the morning.. just occasionally if the pain got too bad/uncomfortable.

My tip for pooping

Smartphone + YouTube: I would get little warning that I would go need poop (probably the movical), but I did just have time to unlock my smartphone, launch youtube and click on anything on the home screen (actually got into Will Smith’s you tube channel) and play it rather loud! I would stick this in front of me on the floor and it would distract me somewhat from what was happening. I think this helped.. try it, it can’t worsen the situation!

- Put your feet on books / putting your feet on tip toes to raise the angle of your legs: whilst sitting on the toilet, I lifted the angle of my legs by lifting my heels off the ground, then later, used a book to lift them up. This helped the poop come out easier.

- Baby wipes: very very gentle dabs were better than wiping. I did just enough to get me from toilet to shower

- Shower: Straight after pooping, I would head into the shower.. hot water.. and I would cup my bum crack so that my arse would sit in some hot water… this really helped. A couple of times, my wife ran me a bath when it was too much lying on the bed. As others have said, this really does help. The shower was always there though, so I used this mainly. Straight into it after pooping. I would gently clean the area with some fingers full of shower gel. This was more effective than trying to wipe/dab clean.

- Constipation: One day, about Day 14 I got constipated.. I had been taking the codeine for pain, and also movicol but i was blocked up. Not nice at all. I pooped just little bits about 6 times in a day. Quite painful. My tip, watch out for codeine, it will block you up. Maybe take extra movicol if you move onto codeine. I should have done that.

My tips for bum leakage

Yes, your bum is going to leak, especially after a poop. It’s hard to keep it clean. Shower or bath after, but then you’re still gonna make a mess of your underwear I’m afraid. Until I found out about this...

- Womens sanitary pads: Seriously, this tip is a lifesaver! It soon became apparent my arse was not doing a good job of it’s main function: keeping my poop out. Keeping things clean down there is a problem for the first couple of weeks. I would change my boxer shorts 3 or 4 times a day, and I found the bed sheets were a mess in the morning. I pretty much fixed both of these after I found a tip online: use those stick on sanitary pads that women use. Not the ones "with wings", but the feather light ones which have a sticky back to them. I could stick these vertically inside my boxer shorts.. this would capture 90% of the leakage, and I could just change the pads rather than by underwear.  Also worked for overnight too. But just to be sure in the first few nights when I didn’t have pads, I slept on a towel.

My tips for swelling / “oh no! I feel haemorrhoids *after* the op!"?

- Worry not: On day 2 I became pretty depressed, as I managed to feel “down there” and I could feel what felt like external haemorrhoids.. NO! I thought - the op didn’t work! I obsessed about this for a few days, it was not nice. My lovely wife actually took some photos with my phone.. yuck - what a mess. Big swollen bits sticking out, worse than I went into the op. I mailed it to my surgeon.. he said he’s pretty sure its just swelling, and will die down after a while. I didn’t really believe him.. but after 10 days I went to visit him and again he said the same thing. They are not hems but will take 6 weeks or more to go down. They are skin tags, I’m now sure of it. As I write this on day 25, I still have them but they are getting softer and slightly smaller. I have been able to sit down and they don’t bother me too much.

There you go.. I hope this helps.

Good luck!