Belly-button surgery recovery strategies
An old fashioned name for laparoscopic surgery is 'belly button" surgery, because the main port that host the camera to be the window in your pelvis is inserted through a small incision within your umbilicus.
1. Overall within an hour after this surgery you should be feeling is fairly well but you may be nauseated and lightheaded
2. Most anesthesia is given with something called an LMA so you don't have a tube, but if a tube is used, you may feel scratchy in your throat or be speaking hoarsely if a breathing tube was used during the anesthesia
3. You will have at least two incisions, one near your belly button (note the nick name) and one near your pubic bone. Pain around the incisions is not uncommon but it should be in the range of 4-5/10, often three is needed, they all should be small.
4. If the procedure involved an operation that removed tissue it is common to get additional abdominal pain or uterine cramping, if not, some women have only mild cramps.
5. Shoulder or neck pain is typically mild and resolves in 1-3 days, it is secondary to the carbon dioxide gas which irritates the nerve under the diaphragm called the phrenic nerve.
6. Tender umbilicus (belly-button) is also common, but minimal bloody drainage, and this drainage should not be brown, or have pus or much volume to it.
7. Gassy or bloated feeling, and if you had antibiotics or a bowel preparation, these can contribute to feeling this way.
8. Vaginal bleeding or discharge (like a menstrual flow) is not uncommon as most likely there was an instrument in the uterus that was used to move the uterus so it could be seen on all sides.