CrymsonX

Sleevy, during my first 5 days post op recovery I dealt with two different waves of gas pain: The first wave came immediately after waking in recovery. The problem with this pain is that the gas isn't within your digestive system (the gas is what is leftover from what was used to expand your admonimal cavity so your surgeon could move around in here) so passing gas, using gas-x strips, none of that will help. This pain presents as pain in/near the diaphragm (especially when taking deep breaths) and in the shoulders. Three main things help: Walking, elevation and deep breaths. The walking will help to move the CO2 around and out from under your diaphragm. The gas will slowly be absorbed into your respiratory system and exhaled. This is where the deep breaths come in. While in the hospital I was given a device called an incentive spirometer which resembles a reverse breathalyzer. The point of the device is to take the longest deepest slow inhale that you can. You can replicate the resistance that the device creates by pursing your lips together like you are going to whistle, and then inhaling with some force, but slowly and as deeply as you can. Hold the breathe for a few seconds and then exhale as slowly. This will increase the amount of oxygen that your body receives, allowing it to expel more of the absorbed CO2, which in turn will notify your body to absorb more of the trapped CO2 and the cycle can repeat (with more walking of course). When I first started using it I could barely take 1/3 of a full breath without a crazy amount of pain, but within a couple of days (sooner I'm sure if I had not slept so much) I worked my way up to a point where I could get to a nice slow deep breath with only minor irritation The elevation that will help you with the gas pain is keeping your body in a reclined position, even when sleeping at least for the first week give or take a day. I found that laying on my back made the pain much worse and it slowed my elimination of the gas. The other thing that can and did help me during this initial round of this Intraperitoneal gas pain were pain medications. Because this pain is outside of your intestines the use of pain killers won't make it worse. The second wave of gas pain (called intestinal gas pain) is exactly how it sounds. This pain is due to the actual buildup of gas within your intestines. This pain is usually felt much lower in the abdomen. Abdominal massage helps a lot with this. Just be sure to do it in the right direction. If you look down at your belly button your colon forms almost a large square around it. The right side of your abdomen is the ascending colon, it goes up from the bottom of your belly to right below your rib cage. Then the transverse colon moves from the right across the belly to the left side, and then the decending colon goes downward on the left side. So if you massage that area from the bottom right, upwards, then across to the left, and back down the left side it will help to move the air through. If you've ever seen a kitten kneading with its tiny paws you have an idea of how the massaging should be. Small kneading movements along that line. For intestinal pain, Gas-X strips would probably help, but when I asked for some once I knew the gas pain was intestinal the nurse gave me a sad look and said "I'm sorry, but we can't give you that. We NEED you to pass gas to show us that your digestive system is in working order" So I continued my regimine of walking, breathing, water, and massage. The upside was that once the majority of the non-intestinal gas pain was gone, getting in and out of bed became much easier. After about a day or so I felt the gas moving to its exit portal and i don't think I've ever had a more relieving passing of gas in my life. A bit loud but I didn't care. LOL #sorrynotsorry. I was more embarrassed when the nurses cheered when they walked in and I told them it finally happened. From that point on i felt better with each passing moment. As for your lack of a bowel movement I didn't have one until about 5 days after surgery, and the last one before that was I believe 3-4 days before my surgery. Being on that liquid diet will do that. Hopefully, you didn't fall asleep too many times reading this novel of a post and that some of the information will help you at least understand the pain and know that it DOES get better but only YOU can make it happen.