October just hasn’t been my month. On October 13th, while I was riding my bike I was the victim of a felony hit and run; that resulted in a grade one separation of my left ac joint. It didn’t slow my running down; I had been able to ride my bike on the trainer; and, I had just returned to the pool this week for some light swimming.
Then at about 9 p.m. this past on Friday night I got a stomach ache. At first I thought it might be a flu bug or food poisoning. By about 2 a.m. Saturday morning, I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. By 9 a.m. Saturday morning, I was in the ER. By about 4 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, I was recovering from a laparoscopic appendectomy. I’m now going to sit around and watch football all day.
I explained to my surgeon beforehand that I am preparing for a December marathon. He says that I may be able to start some light running in about 2 to 3 weeks. I may even be able to ride on the trainer in about a week or so.
For those of you in the laparoscopic appendectomy club, will you please share your recovery stories? Was your doctor supportive of your training efforts?
Between the ER and the OR the surgeon found out that I’m a triathlete and was planning on an off-season marathon and didn’t cut the abdominal muscles (I think he split them along ‘the grain’, i’m not a doc, but that seems to make sense) so I wouldn’t have to wait for that to heal.
Unfortunatly for me, mine involved invasive surgury and a not small incision, which became infected. The incision is healing nicely and I should be back to training by next weekend ( I hope).
My doc is very supportive of my training (his partner is a triathlete) and encouraged me to get active as soon as I felt able to. I’m pretty much just waiting for the incision to heal up a bit more before I start training again.
Much like you, I’ve watched a lot of football, baseball, and ESPN in the past few weeks.
This was a while ago… as in like 11 years ago i was in 6th grade. but they had me out for a month and i wasn’t supposed to do anything.
Being in 6th grade that didn’t work i still played football and stuff during lunch.
i don’t remember it hurting much after i was out of hte hospital, which i was in for a week and 1/2. Mine also ruptured. It was before the 3 incision method. They just mad a two inch cut in my stomach. They also only taped it back togehter they didn’t stitch it.
He says that I may be able to start some light running in about 2 to 3 weeks.
I only wish they had done the laparoscopic version on me. When I was laying in ER, I asked to make sure that they did, but the surgeon just mumbled something and they put me under (after leaving me in the hall without any meds long enough to ensure that I puked a couple of times). I awoke to find a nice 3" slash on my abdomen, against my wishes the old geezer had used traditional surgery for removal.
Mine was cut out on a Monday morning, I struggled out of bed and did laps of the hospital on Wednesday, went home that Friday. I rested over that weekend, but the next Saturday I went to a spring TT (13 miles or so) and won my AG. I never saw my HRM read so high before or since!
I basically ignored the idiot doctor and continued my training as if I had any other illness, pretty much playing it by ear and listening to what my body was telling me. I recovered just fine and won a bunch more TTs and crits that year.
I am a surgeon and do lap appeys and open appeys as part of my practice. I also took part in a study that showed there was no sig. difference between the time in hospital and return to work. I was surprised to find that the lap group did not go back to work sooner. The open surgery is usually done with a muscle splitting incision to help with healing and to prevent hernia formation. Because the layers are split and held open instead of cut this incision has less hernias. Not every surgeon is able to do lap appeys and some do not believe that they should be done at all if the appendix is ruptured. This is often argued quite a bit in the journals.
Lap appeys are usually done with 1 10-12mm incision and 2 5 mm incisions with the biggest incision at the belly button. I tell my pts that they can get on the treadmill and bike as soon as they feel up to it. I prefer that they do not do any abd work or straining of the abs for 4-6 weeks as that is the length of time it takes for the belly button incision to gain the strength you need so you do not end up with a hernia and another operation.
Wound infections are not uncommon in ruptured or gangrenous appeys. Typically only treatment needed is dressing changes and time. It does raise your risk of hernia some. And I would stay out of the pool till healed.
Hope this helps and isn’t to much info. Get well soon.
Not too much info. at all and thank you for input. My doc said that, anatomically speaking, I was a good candidate for a smaller incision above the belly button; he was able to get by with making it 7mm. In his opinion, the 7mm incision might help me heal up faster.
My doc knew I was a triathlete and at least gave me the impression he did something special like making the cut smaller. I’m not sure on this detail, but I remember feeling aweful after surgery. And if I’m not mistaken, I was on my indoor trainer in a couple days. It was amazing.
For those of you in the laparoscopic appendectomy club, will you please share your recovery stories? Was your doctor supportive of your training efforts?
They tried that on me and it didn’t work. They couldn’t get at it and punched a few holes trying. I now have four scars on my abdomen – three little ones for the laparascope(s) and one big one where they gave up and just went in with two hands and got it.
Despite all that, I was basically 100% within about a few weeks.
I had an appy in june that was supposed to be laproscopic, but the surgeon opted for open at the last minute. I was in the end of marathon training, and was getting stomach cramps at the end of my long runs for about a month. Then 2 weeks out, just as I started taper, I got ‘food poisioning’. Felt like crap, but figured it would go away. That was thursday night. Friday and into saturday I was feeling better so I decided it was nothing and went ahead and did my final 10 mile run on sunday. I woke up monday morning vomiting and not able to stand up straight. Made an appointment with the doctor, who did the blood work, felt around and told me to get my ass to the hospital.
The doctor told me he was going in lapro, but decided at the last minute that an open would work better. He said that due to my level of pain and symptoms that it wasn’t all that advanced, and that with my runners build, that he could just slice me open and pop it right out.
Turns out it was 1 hour from bursting. After surgery, he told me he had no idea how I had been walking for the past month, let alone running, but that if I really wanted to, I could still run the race. My surgeon was the only supportive one (he was a runner). The others thought I was crazy and/or thought I’d change my mind once I was out of surgery. His son was running the race and he even took the time to watch the chute for me and see how I was doing. ON a side note, I did enjoy annoying the nurses post-op while I was sleeping. Seems the vitals monitor considers any hr under 50 as ‘dangerously low’, so every 15 minutes the damn thing would start screaming that I was crashing. After the 4th time the nurses started joking about me dieing again, or being too go for their machines.
Two weeks (almost to the day) later I ran the marathon. It didn’t give me any trouble until mile 22 where I was already hurting. That’s when it started feeling like someone was grabbing the incision and pulling it back open. After 2 miles of running hunched over, it finally stopped enough to run upright and my finish pictures look normal.
I’m a noob to TRIs and was training for my first when I had what was suspected to be appendicitus. I was taken to surgery for a Laproscopy, while in there the found some appendices epiploicae had constricted around my bowel. So they removed both my Appendix and the epiploicae (although I’m not sure the extent) Although I’ve been careful, I’m really glad you said 4-6weeks because I’m in week 6 now!!! and I’ve been itching to get on my bike atleat for a bit of low(er) impact exercise - I’ve put on like 9lbs sitting on my a$$ all day!!!
I’m a noob to TRIs and was training for my first when I had what was suspected to be appendicitus. I was taken to surgery for a Laproscopy, while in there the found some appendices epiploicae had constricted around my bowel. So they removed both my Appendix and the epiploicae (although I’m not sure the extent) Although I’ve been careful, I’m really glad you said 4-6weeks because I’m in week 6 now!!! and I’ve been itching to get on my bike atleat for a bit of low(er) impact exercise - I’ve put on like 9lbs sitting on my a$$ all day!!!
I didn’t have the epiploicae issue, but when I had my lap app I was lightly jogging about a week later. Ran a 20 miler 3 weeks later and then the full marathon 5 weeks later. I definitely took it easy in between and my time was horrible, but I’d put in too much work and raised money for charity so felt like I had to do it. Talk with your Dr, but I’d have to think 6 weeks is plenty****
Good luck in the recovery and getting back out there.
****I’m not even close to a Dr. so really, talk to yours.