I have read many posts about the gas pains after surgery. How bad is it really? To tell the truth it makes me a bit nervous.:biggrin:

For me it was more an aggrivating discomfort than pain until 1 week post op when I was able to eat mashed potatoes. That night it started out as discomfort and with in a few hours it turned to severe pain. :biggrin: I panicked thinking I did something wrong. Too far away from home/doctor (Hurricane Gustav Evac) I took my pain med's and it didn't help. Then a family friend who was a nurse came and checked on me and she told me to take my gas strips. After about an hour the pain started to subside. :smile: My advice always keep the gas strips with you and on your first few days of soft mushy foods walk around more and take gas strips everytime you eat. I am a 1 1/2 mts post op and that was the only really bad experience I had with the gas. Good Luck to you.

It was uncomfortable but not unbearable. Heating pad helped considerably. I was worried about it too, and looking back, I'm glad that didn't stop me from surgery. And I've talked to alot of people that never even had the pain at all. So.. you won't necessarily have the shoulder pain. Maybe you will be lucky :biggrin:

I had my surgery last week and didn't have any real problems with the gas pains.

I was in a lot of pain in my back between my shoulder blades which hung around about 10 days. At the time I thought it was from flying and the hospital bed, so when I finally got back home I went to physiotherapist and it did nothing. I didn't realize it was gas until I looked up "back pain" in advanced search on here to see if anyone else had the same problem.

Thanks everyone for your responses. I hope I don't experience an pains but your suggests for relief if I do help.

Everyone is different, I didnt feel any gas pain, and I was worked up just like you , and was very very worried. You might not even have any:)