Question:
different type of feeling

I was wondering if you feel any type of pain after surgery when you eat? like can you tell the difference beside eating close to nothing.! Is there pain or burning? What type of different feeling will I be expecting? Thanks    — kelkel319 (posted on July 21, 2003)

July 20, 2003
I didn't feel any burning or pain...just a sensation of fullness rather rapidly or a general feeling of ick when I ate early out. I have to admit I also felt fear! I didn't want to "hurt" anything. Took a while to get over that.
   — [Deactivated Member]

July 20, 2003
I remember the first time I ate and drank after surgery. I was very scared as I did'nt know what to expect. Anyway, it's no big deal. You probally won't want to eat. In my case, I was hungery but nothing appealed to me. There was no burning or pain. But I did have alot of trouble with getting full to fast. I'd be in the middle of a bite and have to spit out what I had in my mouth as the full feeling came that quick. Just chew extremely well. I chewed to liquid. And eat SLOW. Most of all, eat only until you are SATISFIED NOT FULL.
   — Danmark

July 20, 2003
I didn't feel any pain when eating or drinking but it took several days to even consider eating anything. You completely lose your appetite. And you have so many different feelings inside you are not sure if it is hungry or fullness. EVERYBODY IS DIFFERENT THOUGH :) I just figured out a few days ago what my feeling of full was. I am only 7 days out. I get a lump in my throat that won't go away and it makes me nausous (excuse the spelling) It takes almost the whole day for that feeling to go away. But you gotta keep drinking water to get your water in. This is very important so you don't get dehydrated. The only time that I had burning was after I walked and then it went away after about 1/2 hour. Good Luck.
   — jenniemminor

July 21, 2003
If you follow your doctor's orders and chew, chew, chew when solids are allowed, you don't have pain. I still have pain if I eat too much or too fast and I am 21 mos post op. It isn't an unbearable, excruciating pain but more like a heavy weight that lasts until the food passes through. If I eat too fast or don't chew enough, I get this (excuse me....) slimy clear stringy stuff that I have to throw up. It is called frothing by some. Once I throw up I feel fine! No pain or burning from eating after surgery. Just the heavy feeling. I have felt it before surgery too when I eat something that isn't chewed up properly. It feels like a slow slow passage of something big down into your stomach. I am sure you have felt it before. It is similar to that postop. Hard to describe.
   — Mylou52

July 22, 2003
No burning or pain here. If you eat just enough to satisfy you, there's really no difference in the way you feel after eating pre and post op. The main difference post-op is that when you feel full as a post op, you feel it much higher in your stomach, IMO. It feels like your stomach is now around your sternum. Especially as a new post-op, it's a very uncomfortable feeling to be full. As a pre-op, I often ate past the point of full, especially on things like pasta. No big deal, you undo your pants, groan and say "I shouldn't have eaten so much, I need a nap!" <G> But post op, it felt like a stick was wedged in my chest. The top part or our stomach is not nearly so stretchy as the part we've left behind. If you eat too much, or too fast, or your bites are too big, the stoma can get blocked and it's all got to come back up because it can't go down! One person gave me some good advice. They said "stop when you sigh". I'd never really noticed it before, having ignored any signs telling me to stop eating for so many years, but I DO sigh when I first begin to feel full. So, even when my head wants to continue eating, I've learned to listen to my body because I learned my body would punish me when I ignored it!
   — sandsonik