Recovery from bilateral salpingo oophorectomy

Women's health
1

Hi !

I stumbled across this site whilst looking for answers as to why I'm feeling SO crappy nearly 4 weeks after having a laparoscopic bilateral salpingo oophorectomy.

I had a general anaesthetic, was the last operation of the day, ended up on an orthopaedic ward for post op recovery and then, less than 18 hours later, discharged with no advice and only paracetamol and ibuprofen for pain relief !

2 days later, I was in total agony and re admitted to hospital-thankfully, this time to a gynae ward-where the staff were excellent, sorted out my pain and three days later, I was back home.

So within a week of the op, I was feeling fairly ok.

Less than two weeks after the op, and being the sort of person who finds it hard to sit around doing nothing, I started pottering around the garden, did some hoovering, etc and then, having had a long standing order for a friends daughter's wedding, spent four days last week making a four tier wedding cake and another cake.

After my pre op, and before my op, my Dr's surgery rang me to tell me that my pre op blood test had shown I was low in iron, so could I go in to discuss this with my Dr.

So, just over a week ago, before my wedding cake making, and nearly three weeks post op, I went to see my Dr.

I had started to feel generally unwell with stomach pains, general acheyness and just not quite right.

I mentioned this to my Dr who didn't seem too concerned and proceeded to put me on iron tablets to boost my low stores of iron.

Since I started taking the tablets one week ago, I feel dreadful 😩

My stomach is constantly rolling, I ache all over and whilst I don't have 'through the eye of a needle' diarrhoea.....its .....loose ! to say the least ! Also getting a lot of headaches and just feel crap in general.

Before anyone mentions menopausal symptoms, I'll just give you a bit of history. Following two reoccurrances of my initial breast cancer ( lumpectomy, radiotherapy, mastectomy, chemo ) I CHOSE to have my ovaries removed.

I had been having monthly Zoladex injections to shut my ovaries down

2

Cont.......having Zoladex injections for 5 months prior to ovary removal, so I'd already had all the symptoms of having my oestrogen stripped away from me !

I read in several earlier discussions on here about the recovery time from such an operation being much longer than the '1-2 weeks' that the 'professionals' merrily bandy your way !

Im sure the iron tablets aren't helping but I just feel SO bloated and out of sorts 😩

Having been through all of the cancer shizzle I mentioned, I really thought this op to remove my ovaries was going to be a breeze !

NOT !

Any of joh out there who have been/felt anything like I'm describing ?

3

I am 7 weeks post op, for 4 weeks my husband did nearly every thing as the leaflet UinsidI was given impressed that was the amount of time to heal inside.Don't forget there is a lot of trauma to your body,like you I am not one to sit around and do nothing, I broke my hip years ago and had it pinned when I came home I didn't do as I was told and was hoovering and everything,recovery took longer At the moment I am being investigated for iron deficiency and taking iron tablets but have none of the symptoms you mention.I hope you are feeling better soon,but do try to rest.

4

Should say I was given

5

Thanks for your reply Brenda.

when I was re admitted to hospital with the awful agony, the consultant who operated actually came to see me on her rounds and said that they'd had problems removing one of my ovaries as it was stuck good and proper, so they'd had a bit of a tug of war with it !

I think if I could see a picture of my insides, it may well explain why I'm feeling like I am ? Just because I look ok on the outside ( other than looking like a bloated whale ! ) I probably thought that I was more healed than I actually am.

I have to see my Consultant for a follow up appointment in another 2 weeks......I sure hope I'm feeling better by then ! 

6

Whilst I have not had the same op as you, I felt ill for at least 6 weeks afterwards, initially I thought I was ok and proceeded to cook and shop and insisted on cooking Christmas dinner. Then back to the hospital with a suspected infection which it then took 3 weeks to get antibiotics as was told that initially they didn't think it was an infection, it turned out to be 2 nasty infections! Once I had got over the antibiotics as they made me feel ill too, I started to feel a lot better. So I guess what I am trying to say is go back to GP see another one if need be and get checked over again to rule out other causes. I also didn't appreciate the time needed to recover as all the professionals kept telling me i would be better in a few days and sent me home on paracetamol and ibuprofen which I was taking alternately every two hours as in more pain than they led me to believe saw my GP who prescribed strong cocodamol, this helped enormously.

hope you feel better soon

7

I think us women think we are indestructible, when I came home( only stayed in one night ) I thought I looked fine,people have since told me I looked awful,my cyst was wrapped around ovary which is why they couldn't do keyhole. Look after yourself and I hope you recover soon