The Colon Club

New member here. I had LAR surgery two days ago to remove a tumor that was located in my sigmoid colon. Technically it is rectal cancer, but my doctors are treating it as colon cancer due to it’s location.

My question is about pain. At this point, feel somewhat comfortable while in the hospital bed. But attempting to walk has been agonizing. They have me on Norco at this point, but that doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.

My doctors obviously want me walking as soon as possible. I want that as well. But is my pain situation unusual at this point, aseeing as how it’s Wednesday, and I had my surgery on Monday?

Long story short, the docs are trying to get the pain under control so that I can walk as needed. But I’m feeling very defeated.

Hi, sorry you are in so much pain after your surgery. I can’t really comment on what is normal. Everyone’s experience is different. I didn’t have too much pain walking but sitting was a killer for a while. I was dischrged in 3 days and had a 4 hour drive home. The veteran nurse told my wife to give me an oxycodon right before we left. That and a lot of people praying for us did the trick.

Hang in there it gets better.

Dave

Hello and welcome,

I am sorry you are in so much pain. My husband had his LAR back in August of this year. He was in really bad pain for 3 days. While he was in the hospital, they had him connected intravenouslyto a pain medication pump where we could push the button anytime he needed it for his pain. In addition, they were also giving him another pain medication through his IV every 4 hours. The doctors wanted him to walk on the same day of the surgery but his pain was so intense he couldn't even move in his bed, so he refused walking. His pain started to subside on day 4 and by the end of day 5 it was pretty manageable without the pump. Everyone's body is different and so is their pain tolerance and the way and speed of the healing.

Good luck and I hope your pain gets better soon.

BTW my husband was able to walk on day 2, although he was still in a lot of pain and discomfort. The doctors told him the longer he postpones the walking the longer he is going to stay in the hospital. Thats all it took . next thing i knew he was up and walking with nurses.

I started walking on day two. 69 steps. Day 3: 98 steps. Day 4: 508 steps. BTW I had to be in pain to walk so few steps. 12 days out from surgery I walked 27,064 steps or about 13 miles. I had tried some of the pain relief meds - Oxy (once), Tylenol and Ibuprofin. I hated the way Oxy made me feel and didn't feel that the other stuff had much effect.

I found that a lot of the pain was the result of the catheter and ureter stents and things were better after those were removed.

Your body was just assaulted and it takes a bit of time to recover.

Can you describe the location of the pain or what is happening or is it just kind of in multiple places? I recall that it was somewhat painful just moving around in bed or trying to change positions or reaching for something on the nightstand.

I'm sorry you're in so much pain while walking!*hugs* I had an epidural put in the OR when I had my colon resection surgery in 2014. It helped a lot. At first I sat in the chair by my bed and then took short walks gradually increasing until I was walking around the ward. My epidural was in for about three days and after that dilaudid helped my pain. Maybe your doctors could try a different pain medication. I was in the hospital for 6 or 7 days. Good luck!*hugs*

My husband too had terrible pain after his LAR surgery to reverse his colostomy. It also took 24 hours longer for his gut to wake up than normal because his surgery was over 6 hours long, the poor guy threw up every bit of the liquid diet he had eaten that day. His pain was located mainly in his right shoulder, and the surgeon guessed it was either gas pain from trapped gas leftover from LAR or muscle discomfort from being in one position so long. So he would get his morphine, we'd wait for it to take effect, then try walking. We'd get only a couple of laps before the pain started getting too bad and he'd lay back down and nap. Repeat three times a day. I'm still not sure what the cause was, but after a couple of days the pain was lessening and it was gone by the time he was discharged; we were there a full week.

The nurses applauded me for making sure he got up to walk, but I know it was agony for him. To be honest I'm not sure if he would have gotten up and walked on his own if I wasn't there to coax him along. I wish you luck, and I hope the pain goes away soon!

Im sorry to hear you are in such pain. To be honest, I had absolutely no pain associated with my surgery, a little bit of discomfort in the abdominal area was all. I did request a nerve block of my stomach before operating though,and I think that made all the difference. My belly was kind of numb for a couple of weeks afterward, but so worth it. The only issue I really had when trying to walk was with the catheter, it was pulling and burning while walking. I had the nurses adjust the angle of the way it was taped to my leg and that made a world of difference. And even if a wasn't walking, I was sitting up in a chair for as long as I could bear it. Best of luck going forward, hopefully it gets a little easier for you.