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Hi,
After 10 years of suffering from haemorrhoids I had a haemorrhoidectomy. This was the best decision I've ever made. I found information on the surgery to be rarely available and often misleading, so I'm very keen to share my experience. For context I am living in Australia (Melbourne), had my surgery in the public system - It was performed by a colo-rectal surgeon. I am 30 years old and male. I am pretty fit (I exercise for around 12 hours/wk) and don't smoke.
Please feel free to message me with any questions, happy to answer them all. I have a lot more detail to give on top of the below and am more than happy to share.
Some quick points about my experience:
Date of surgery - 23/3/2017
1 night spent in hospital - AUS public hospital, room shared with 3 others
First BM post surgery was 2 days after surgery
Pain medication - Took endone and panadol on the day of the surgery, took only panadol for 5 days after the surgery (8 a day) - Did not take any endone after I left hospital as it causes constipation (You don't want this)
Laxatives: Took Actilax and Normacol plus (A stool bulker) for 2 days before surgery and also for 4 days after the surgery.
Time off work: I took a total of 7 business days off work, worked from home from Monday-Wednesday after that and was back in the office 2 weeks after surgery.
Back on the bike: I was back cycling (My primary mode of transport) 2 weeks after surgery!
On the day of my surgery I arrived at the hospital at around 7 am, feeling ridiculously hungry and thirsty due to fasting from midnight the night before. Arriving in the day surgery area actually made me feel pretty comfortable, as I saw all the other people waiting for their surgery too (Obviously all there for different reasons, not everyone is cool enough to have haemorrhoid surgery!). After waiting for around half an hour I was called in and robed up, I put my things in the paper bag they supplied me and waited nervously. Another half hour or so later they called me through to sit on a bed, which I waited on for about another half hour (Lots of waiting!). While waiting an anaesthetist (Spelling?) came to speak to me, all pretty standard questions around my general health and previous surgical history (Of which I have hardly any). After waiting for another 45 or so minutes the aneasthetists returned and wheeled me through to the surgery prep room. They explained that we would start there, getting me set up with heart rate monitors and intraveinous drips etc for the anaesthetic - At this stage I didn't really care what they were going to do to me - This is a good piece of advice, when in hospital just let them do what they need to do!
As the anaesthetists prodded me with needles one of the colo-rectal surgeons came to speak to me about the procedure, she advised that the recovery would be tough, and would get worse before it got better. At this stage I didn't really care what the surgeon had to say, as I really figured there was no turning back!
...And the next thing I know I'm in the recovery room, I wondered whether the surgery had even happened! Clenching by bum-cheeks though I felt different though, so I realised it definitely had happened! The initial recovery from the anaesthetic was a bit rough for me, and I nearly fainted after waking up. At this stage the time was about 11 am, so I figured the surgery had only taken about an hour to complete. I rested in the recovery ward for about an hour, as mentioned before I didn't really care what happened here as I was due to spend the night in hospital - Time was irrelevant now. Before being taken to the ward the surgeon who spoke to me before the surgery came to say hello, she said my haemorrhoids were huge, and that recovery would be tough.
I'm going to go straight to the nitty-gritty here about post-operation pain. If you want to know details about my hospital stay please send me a message, it was generally fine though.
I never really felt too much post-op pain, and could walk around comfortably on the day of the surgery. Sitting directly on my bum was uncomfortable but not painful. I walked myself out of hospital and never had any mobility issues after surgery. While in hospital my pain level was never above a 4 out of 10 - Pain was managed with Endone while in hospital and then with panadol when I got home.
My first BM was 2 days after surgery - I'd woken up early that morning determined to get something out, but didn't want to force it (Straining is bad!). I took my actilax, along with some movicol and macrovic (triple attack of laxatives!). Nothing really happened until around 11 am when I had a coffee (First one since surgery). After about 2 sips of coffee it was on! I ran to the bathroom and let out a good amount of excriment, not a full BM but it was good, not too painful but it felt quite intense, like I needed to take the biggest poo of my life! I ran a bath with salt water and relaxed for a while in it after the BM. There was no major bleeding, but some blood on the toilet paper after wiping.
That afternoon I need to go again, I set the bath running with warm salty water and had a youtube video playing in the background to distract me. One thing I noticed was how important breath control was for these first few BM's... If you don't get your breathing right it ain't gunna happen! This BM was uncomfortable - it felt like a lot of the muscles around that area were swollen, but my body wanted to get the waste out. The whole BM lasted for about 5 minutes, and I felt like I was going to faint at the end! Tired, I slumped into the bath, once again with the youtube going in the background helped.
Honestly, pain varied with every BM, usually my morning BM was easy and painless but my arvo BM would be more uncomfortable.
I tried to keep mobile during my first few days of recovery, and went for short walks a few times every day, this not only helped with general fitness, but also helped keep me regular on the toilet.
4 days after surgery I stopped taking laxatives all together (Didn't want to get hooked on them!), and then a few days after that I was completely off pain-killers.
I went back to work less that 2 weeks after surgery and rode my bike again 2 weeks after surgery.
I'm 3.5 weeks post surgery now and am back to riding as much as I used to before surgery (Twice a day during the week for an hour to/from work and then 3 hours on saturday morning), I'm back at the gym at lunch time during work and BM'ing like a champ.
I would thoroughly recommend this procedure to anyone, the pain sucks but its not too bad, there are people out there suffering much worse (Think burns victims).
Please reach out if you'd like more info.
Cheers,
Pete
2 likes, 3 replies
abubin pezz
Posted
Did you ever considered laser surgery?
pezz abubin
Posted
Hi,
No, laser surgery was never raised by any of the doctors or surgeons I saw. They did bring up banding techniques, however advised that due to the size of my haemorrhoids this wouldn't be a viable option.
Let me know if you have any more questions!
MaxwellSmart pezz
Posted
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