Back pain and lack of ability to eat

kate3811 · November 21, 2016

I had my surgery Nov. 14th and I'm 1 day from being a week out. When I came out of my surgery I was in excruciating back pain and I had so much gas in my body I couldn't even stay conscious until they gave me morphine. My back pain has been a struggle and my gas pain isn't as bad and I'm on a 2 week liquid diet though my paperwork says I can add purée food if I want so I'm a little confused on if I need to stay on liquids for the whole two weeks or since I'm done with week one I should gradually add purée food. I've been having so much trouble trying to eat because I literally can't tell if I'm hungry or if it just gas and when I do eat I get sharp pains ( which I assume is the gas) I try to eat slow but so far Soup broth doesn't upset my stomach. Am I just being a worry wort because I'm so fresh out of surgery??

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AC1987 · November 21, 2016

I had surgery the same day and it's the same here I have back pain as well I mean I've had back pains for years that would come and go but this back I've been experiencing since surgery can get bad worst on my right side... as for foods I'm not really sure I see my doctor this week hopefully to move up to puree's I've noticed ed that when I eat Jello it hurts when swallowing I'm still experiencing some of the gas pain as well very uncomfortable at times in my chest... it will get better for us...

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Hiraeth · November 21, 2016

Everything you mentioned sounds normal. Did you have back pains before the surgery? If not, this could definitely be lingering trapped CO2 gas. I was in a horrible amount of pain for the first 2 days after surgery. My left arm and shoulder were killing me because of the trapped gas. The only thing that helped was walking, but I became so tired and wanted to lay down. I couldn't lay down without the gas pain shooting back to my shoulder. So I demanded (because the nurse didn't want to comply) that they give me Dilaudid. The nurse seemed shocked that I knew what it was, so I told her that I had kidney stones before, and that Dilaudid was the only pain killer (for me personally) that could take the edge off of any kind of excruciating pain.

Week 2 seems a bit soon for puree foods. I would just keep doing pure liquid until you can take liquid without sharp pains. I was unable to eat anything except liquid for the first 3 weeks. The reason is because our stomachs are so swollen after surgery. It will get better. Right now, it's hard to imagine being able to go back to normal. But trust me... Just give it a bit more time and you'll notice your body feeling better.