I'm preop and I get gas pains a lot. So I was wondering how bad the gas pain afterwards was for you guys and what did you do to relieve it quickly.

The gas pain that I experienced post op was from the CO2 they use in surgery.

they pump up the abdomen with CO2 gas so they can see in there. they try to get the gas out, but sometimes a bubble will remain. it gets stuck up under the diaphram and causes referred shoulder pain. it gets reabsorbed.

Nothing much helped except for a heating pad and walking...and time (about 2 days, for me)

I had no porblems with intestinal gas, but if you do, lots of peeps swear by Gas-X strips.

CO2 pain, HORRIBLE! I haven't found anything out yet

I didn't have any gas pains post surgery. Don't know why, but I didn't.

I also had no gas pains after surgery, which I was super thankful for! Walking is the cure, though, to get that CO2 out of the system as quickly as possible.

My gas pains were severe. I was on the table several hours longer than planned (long story) and as a result had excessive amounts of gas pain. If your pains are real bad and the walking/heat pads don't bring you relief, don't let them make you suffer, you can always request relief. You may want to try a combo of GasX/di-gel (simethicone?!?) and a suppository to get things moving. After suffering for 3 days with no relief and countless laps around the recovery floor a new shift nurse finally brought me this combo and it seemed to help get things started again. She also told me the co2 can cause your insides to "sleep" and the pain meds can make you constipated slowing down the absorption process. Just make sure they give enough simethicone it wasn't until I went home and took a double dose of Di-gel before I got any progress. Also my wife bought me a heat pad which helped tremendously even after the gas pains were long gone.