Hi All,

Just wondered what type of pain medication anyone with horrible shoulder and abdominal pain is taking? I was doing fine 5-6 days post-op, now the last two days have sucked!!!!! I take the gas-x, walk and use a heating pad. Today on my walk home from work, which took 30 instead of the usual 15 mins, I was basically in tears the entire time. Like the walking was making the pain worse. Taking a deep breath sent a sharp pain to both my left shoulder and left abdominal area. Finally when I got home sitting made the pain subside. I am considering taking my percocet for relief, but I think pain medication just makes the gas worse. I know for sure if I was in this kind of pain pre-surgery I would have went to the hospital or to my doctor. I called the clinic during the day today, before the walk home incident, and they said everything is normal.

Thanks for your input and prayers.

i am four days post op and I have terrible shoulder and chest pain. My doctor gave me this thing to help me breathe with and it helps a little. But mainly I take vicodin for the pain. Hope you are feeling better

I wouldn't be afraid of taking your pain meds. That's what they're there for. Also, ibuprofen worked wonders on my gas pain. I understand how you're feeling. I was in tears as well. It gets better, I promise. Maybe you need to take another day or two off work. I was disappointed when I wasn't the person who bounced back in 2-3 days. It took me 7-8 days to feel good. Hope you feel better soon!

I am glad u put this out there because I just started the same exact feeling my shoulder is bothering me alot also hmmmm what should we do call the doc?

Well my doctor's office said it is normal when I called yesterday and to keep up with the gas-x, maybe tums (although I thought this was for heart burn - I did not try tums), heating pad and walking. My room mate also suggested using her portable massaging chair to help the gas get moving.

I was also wondering if some of the cramping was due to only eating a bit of Soup and Protein drinks, as I read another post somewhere and someone said they started to feel better when they moved on to mushies, like I wasn't eating enough to move the gas. So instead of pain medication I decided to take more gas-x and have some chicken vegetable noodle soup, which I put through my bullet to puree, and then added about 6 crushed up crackers that got nice and mushie.

Low and behold, while eating the mushy cracker chicken noodle puree soup and sitting on the massaging chair finally some gas found it's way out Sorry to be so specific. The rest of the night I walked around my living room every hour for a couple minutes and sat on the massaging chair 3-4 times. Later that night took more gas-x (which put me one dose over the daily limit) and I made some lipton chicken noodle soup and put crackers in it to get mushie and just chew chew chew. When I went to bed I massages my lower belly for about 10 minutes. For lunch today more cracker mush lipton soup and some brown Beans in molasas (which I just mushed up in my mouth). Hopefully I have turned the corner, cause today I'm feeling sooooooo much better then the last couple days.

So I'm moving on to a modified mushies/pureed stage (I'm not to have mushies for another 6 days), but I'm feeling good and can't live with that pain any longer. Still a Protein shake for Breakfast, but lunch and dinner will be some sort of mushed up, with a bit of liquid item. Something with more substance then cream soup.

On a side noted, I bought the Shoppers Drug Mart extra strength chewable gas tablets today and they seem to be working WAY better then the gas-x extra strength brand!!! Hopefully my co-workers don't notice....but at this point I don't care

To anyone experiencing major, bring you to tears, painful shoulder and abdominal pain; just keep working the gas-x (maybe try another brand), walking, heating pads, a little massage and make sure your getting enough calories.....hopefully it will pass pun totally intended!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I started getting really bad stomach cramps and shoulder pain when I was in my sons car last night and i thought I was going to die. I'm 4 days post op so I havent eaten anything solid in a week. Clear liquids are killing me! I got some really good advice to eat more protein and drink lots of water, and walk. Its good to know more solid food will help lessen the pain.

My body pains went away after 5-6 days. My shoulder pain after about 2 weeks. Heating pads help. But what really works is becoming active again. once I started exercising, very low key, the pains just went away. Hang in there. It will pass.