Open or Lap?

Did you have open surgery or laproscopic? and Why? What was your pain level when you woke up?

I am having LAP but of course there's always a chance that he may have to convert to open if there is a problem.. which I am aware of.. but Im still totally freaked out about waking up to a huge incision on my tummy.

I had open. It is definately not a huge incision though. I measured mine last night just for the heck of it, it's a little over 2.5" long. I would much rather have this scar then 5 or 6 little ones. I wasn't in a horrible amount of pain, just sore. I chose open because there are less complications and you are under anesthesia for about 1/3 of the time that you would be with the lap. Good luck to you!

Wait. Less complications for open? Lol now Im confused... I thought there was less complications with the Lap because your risk of infection was lower? no?

Also how long were you in the hospital for with the open?

I had lap, Realistically  the incisions didn't really hurt for me when I got out, the pain was really tolerable. It was just the gas pain that I had in my back that hurt.
But the next day you may feel allot of pressure on your ribs, almost a crushing feeling but the pethidine or morphine will take that away. Right now, being one week out I can safely say, it's not so bad. The incisions feel really tight when I sit up and walk around. But everyone has a different pain threshold, keep that in mind :)

I had lap and I'm glad, some of my incisions you can't even see anymore so thats great!  My surgery took less than an hour, and that included him taking my gallbladder out, and I was out of the hospital in 2 days.

I am having OpenRny! My Surgeon only does open and has been doing it at a bariatric center of excellence! I feel confident in him and his abilities.

I'm of the school that says "whatever is safest according to your surgeon"...with either, you will have wound care on the incisions...neglect can cause either method to go bad..

I had my surgery done LAP...and after about a year, I really have to look to find the pinpoint scars...if my surgeon had to switch to open to do my surgery, I'd live with the bigger scar to have these results again...lol
hell, for these results, I'd live with a zipper!!!

xxxbecca

I had lap. my dr. only dose lap unless he finds a reson to do open. I was in the hospital for two days. The pain was realy just from gas. I had a totle of 6 inscions one was through the belly button and that one you would never know the other ones are fadding so i am happy. If he had to switch to open i would have been fine with it b/c ive never been healther or happier.

I was told there are higher incidences of leaks with lap for the mere fact that with the open, the Dr can see everything with his own eyes, and doesn't have to rely on the scope and worry about missing anything. The chance of a leak with lap is about 4% and with the open 0.3% that's like a 12x increase.

My surgeon does both, but he prefers LAP because he's got this huge new and beautiful operation room that is specially made for LAP and he's like, specially certified and trained.. a lot of technical terms and whatnot.  I, too, am afraid of waking up and having a larger scar!