Internal hernia

I had surgery on April 10th for an internal hernia. For others that had this surgery, how long did it take for you to be back to "normal"? I have no energy. By the time I work all day I am totally exhausted.

Mine was before WLS and was 10 inches in length... My old C sections incision tore apart inside.   I was very sore and tired for about a month.  It was the hardest surgery I have been thru so far. 

Did they use mesh to repair yours or just stitch it back together?

Internal hernias are very common for WLS patients.  They told me it is because our weight drops quickly and the abdomenal walls are so stretched out... they tend to tear.

I hope you feel better soon.

Huge hugs,
Tracy

I go back to the Dr. on Monday and I will know more. I was still pretty out of it when i left the hospital and I am not sure exactlly what was done. I do know that in addition to the internal hernia I had a scar tissue that was according to the doc very unusual.

I had surgery for internal hernia's when I was about a year post-op. At one time, it was so common amongst post-ops that we had our own nickname for it..KBS...Kinky Bowel Syndrome. What happens is that we lose weight so rapidly and yet still have our loose abdomon so that the intestines can squirm around. As they do that, they can get hung up on small opening of the tissue on the underside of them. The locations of this tissue tended to be similar from patient to patient so many surgeons began putting in a fw reinforcement stitches when they did the RNY to try to prevent this from happening. It still does on occasion (obviously) since all surgeons don't do this...or some have intestines that are so determined to find a place that they can poke through that they go to a different spot than the most common ones. With external hernia's, they get hung up on  tissue between them and your abdomon. That most commonly happens when someone has an abdominal surgery and the intestines poke through the incision line of the abdominal wall. The external ones are much easier to diagnose since you can see them.

When I had my KBS, Dr. Gupta put in a few well-placed stitches in that underneath tissue to prevent the intestines from slipping back into there. I had 3 places they were getting hung up on. She also removed scar tissue that was trying to cause a blockage.

I was off of work for 6 weeks and it seems like it wasn't until after the first 4 that I started to feel better. Since you're back to work already, I'd say you are doing pretty good. Just keep taking your vitamins & B12. If you aren't drinking protein drinks anymore, you may want to for awhile to give you an extra boost to help with the healing at this time.

Hope you get to feeling better.

Sherri

Your explanation and comments are very helpful. For some reason I had this idea that I should be totally back to normal by now. I am not sure why I thought that but obviously I just need to be patient. Thanks