Two Weeks Post LPAO -- Pain & Itching

Today is two weeks from the date of my LPAO, and I have been home from the hospital for a full week. It has been a bit different than my first week home after my RPAO, which you can read about here and here.

For one thing, my activity level my first week home after this surgery was much higher, and not by choice. After my RPAO, I spent the majority of my first week at home sedentary, reading or sleeping in a couch or bed, moving only when necessary. This past week, I had to work full time the whole week. I was, of course, working remotely from Connecticut, not going into the office. But still, that meant sitting upright in a chair at a desk most of the day, and moving around a lot more than I had done in March. Having to work couldn't be helped, but I do think I could have used a bit more sedentary reclining last week.

My pain has been generally well-managed, except for sometimes sharp pain in two specific places. In March, what pain I had would migrate, popping up in different places every time. This time, the pain is localized in two places: the back of my hip joint (it feels like deep inside where my left buttock meets the top of my thigh, maybe the cut in the ischium?), and above my tailbone, on left side, just above my left buttock.

The former pain has lessened over the course of the week and by now is pretty much resolved. The latter pain is much more common and more severe than the former. That pain above my left buttock is almost constant when I am crutching (each time I take a "step" with my left leg, I feel pain there) and can ache while I am sitting in chairs or lying down, especially if I have just been crutching. I have no idea what it is, it doesn't seem to be located near the surgery site at all. I've got an email in to Dr. Millis asking about it.

My best guess is that there is something going on with the sacrotuberous ligament. That would make sense since one of the hamstring muscles originates from that ligament. Maybe when I step a certain way and activate that muscle, it pulls on the sore ligament? Now why the ligament is sore in the first place is a totally different question. Unless of course it is because that ligament connects the sacrum to the tuberosity of the ischium -- the ischium, of course, being the potential source of my other pain described above and one of the bones cut during a PAO. Gosh, surgeons must love it when patients play doctor using Wikipedia.

Moving on. Unlike on my right side after my RPAO, there is no numb spot on my left thigh after my LPAO. Probably because they didn't have to move the nerves around on the left side.

My incision on the left side is fine. The dressing itches sometimes but not too often. It is not generally tender, although earlier in the week it did feel a bit bruised if I pressed gently on my hip near the top of the incision. We have not changed the dressing on the left side. I imagine it will come off some time this week.

My incision on the right side (where the screws were taken out) does not bother me at all. Obviously it was a much shallower cut than the left side. Its dressing came off on Saturday, but the steri-strips remain.

In the hospital I did have some swelling in the hip area on the left side, and my left foot and lower leg swelled up like the blueberry girl in Willy Wonka for a while. But all that swelling is gone now.

My current pain medication regimen is:

-- 1 Oxycodone every 5 hours during the day
-- 1 Oxycontin twice daily
-- 1 Valium as needed during the day
-- 1 Oxycodone and 1 Valium kept at bedside if needed for pain during the night

It is more pain medication than some other PAO women have taken at this point in their healing, but as I wrote a few days ago, I am not being a sissy; I just seem to need more pain medication than most. I am not worried; I will step it down when I am ready, just as I did in March after my RPAO. But currently, especially with that frequent upper buttock pain, I need pain relief.

As I explained in March, the Oxy painkillers do not make me feel mentally foggy in the slightest. Only the Valium makes me a bit scatterbrained and sleepy, so I never take it when I am working, or trying to concentrate on something important like Gossip Girl.

My horrible skin rash has subsided. Probably primarily because I am not laying in those hospital sheets anymore. Earlier in the week I was applying the prescription steroid rash cream twice daily, but since the rash seems to have been vanquished, I've essentially stopped with them now.

Alas, when one itch dies, another is born. Again I am plagued with the itchy-red-spots problem I had in March, probably a side-effect of the pain medications. I am taking Atarax (thrice daily) to combat the itch, and I also try not to scratch. I carry around Sarna lotion and put that on every time I have an urge to scratch. Needless to say, I am very moisturized. It seems to be working because I feel like I have a few fewer itchy red spots than I did mid-week.

I still take aspirin, but I never wear my TED stockings. No one told me I had to. I wore them on the car ride home from the hospital but that was it.