Hi Michelle,

Missed this one earlier.  I haven’t had hysterectomy, but caesar done twice and I guess to have the op abdominally is very similar for pain levels except they remove the uterus as opposed to cutting into it and then stitching it up after the procedure.  Pain levels are high after that op also due to the contracting uterus whereas when the uterus is removed, I am not sure that the pain would be quite the same.  All I would say is make sure that you have plenty of non steroid anti inflammatory type pain relief on hand if you can take that on your med’s and paracetomol.  I took Synflex AND panadol (paracetomol).  Lots of rest and literally I mean rest...no heavy lifting or over doing things as this will slow down your healing and set you back lot’s. 

Post op with the caesar they gave me a morphine drip which you could control the dosing yourself within limits LOL!  (I mean the second caesar I had I went a bit nut’s with that and saw double for a while).  As soon as you feel pain you can press a button and deliver yourself more morphine.  They have probably explained this to you though or will pre op when you sign consent forms etc.  The first time they set this up though (first caesar) they miscalculated the dose that I needed and I didn’t get enough.  That was not nice for the first half an hour after the epidural wore off after coming back from theatre.  You will probably have general though with hysterectomy. 

As for wounds on the outside...if it is an abdminal op that is...it generally takes about two weeks for it to heal and calm down on the outside but but you will not be able to do anything strenuous as it takes the muscles a lot longer to heal--that’s if it is anything like a caesar wound.  They put a clear dressing over the wound so that you can shower--will probably shave you abdomen so that will itch like crazy as the hair starts to grow back...I took the dressing off after the fourth day from what I can remember  I sat in a warm bath and soaked the dressing for a while until the sticky stuff loosened up and then it comes off easily.  Watch out for temperature as this shoots up with any infection post op and you will definately need to raise your med’s back up at that point if they have been dropped back down at any time.  This is all assuming that you are having an abdominal hysterectomy.  It will not apply if your having a vaginal hysterectomy.  I guess you will still have had an incision of sorts and from what I can understand, internal tissue that have been cut take longer than the outer cuts.