One of the most common questions I am asked is “I’m still in so much pain after X weeks. Is this normal?” and my answer is always an emphatic “yes!”.

When you have an abdominal hysterectomy, you’re having a MAJOR surgery around your core muscles – those are muscles that are the foundation of all movement around your pelvis, lower back, hips and abdomen.  All physical activity depends on these muscles.

The surgeon had to cut through your lower abs, tissue, nerves, etc. to get to your uterus.  This is a massive incision where the cut is deep – not topical as a cut you’d get on your finger or hand.  During the operation, they have to reach inside you and continue to cut tissue off, pull apart, pull out, stretch, clamp…you name it to get your uterus out.  Then, they had to sew you back together to finish things off.

So…of course you’re going to feel pain 4, 5, 6 weeks, or even further out!  In fact, here I am nearly 18 months after surgery and I still occasionally feel some sensitivity around my scar.

When You Feel Pain…

If you feel pain, stop whatever it is that you’re doing and rest.  I know that there are some folks out there of the school to “just push through it”.  If you’re already active and are exercising, then NO! don’t push through it. What that pain is, is your body telling you to slow down and rest. I can’t stress this enough.  REST!  Otherwise you’ll run into complications later on down the road.

The same goes if you have a swelly belly.  Put some ice on it and rest.  There’s a reason why you’re swollen because something on the inside of you is inflamed.  You probably overworked that area of your body so it’s telling you that it can’t do it anymore right now.

Are You Still Unconvinced?

Still don’t believe me that you just had a major surgery and pain after a few weeks is normal?  Here is a video of a Total Abdominal Hysterectomy.  While I chose a video that didn’t show much blood, it’s still a video of someone getting a hysterectomy so if you’re squeamish, don’t watch it.

However, if you’re curious to see what the surgery looks like (as I was!) it’s an interesting video.