Bruised ribs?
I am right at 4 weeks post-op and you have described the feeling I've had for the past 2 weeks. The only time my ribs weren't hurting is when I was laying flat on my back. I also dealt with dehydration and trouble getting fluids. I have been working extra hard the last few days to get all my fluids and protein in and I can say that today was the first day that my ribs don't seem to hurt as much. I honestly think it's just the way I was sitting due to the pain on the left side of my tummy. It seems that the better that incision sight feels the less strain on my ribs. go figure.
Everyone heals differently and at different rates. It could be internal swelling, it could be related to how you are sitting/lying, or it could be something else. If the pain is more than a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1-10, I say call your doc and check in. Otherwise, take a little tylenol and focus on getting in your fluids and protein.
I've had some odd pains over the past few weeks, including just yesterday. I had pain between my belly button and my middle incision. Sharp pain that came and went and was worse in the morning, but improved w/eating. The surgeon said it sounded like nothing to worry about and he thought it was maybe my new anatomy's way of telling me I'm hungry and to try eating slightly smaller meals every 3 hours, instead of every 4-5. I did that yesterday, having a fruit/veggie with some protein (pureed) every 3 hours, and what do you know? The pain went away! :-)
Come visit me on my blog, Through a Cooking Glass! I talk about my journey through WLS and learning to live, cook, and eat on the other side.
Well, hubby wouldn't let me wait for Bari office to open, so he took me straight to the ER in the morning. They did a CT and thought they saw something, but wanted to do an endoscopy to be sure so I was admitted. Early the afternoon I had that done. The GI doc said there was some ulcer damage (plus I had been dehydrated again). So they wanted to give me protonics tonight and in the morning and then up my Prilosec to 40mg 2x a day. And, this whole time I have been on Dialotted every 2-3 hrs to control pain. Now my surgeon just stopped by... He says that the "ulcer" is stuff that hasn't healed, and when I asked him what we were checking for next, he said we'd checked everything hat could be life threatening and the rest was probably psychological! WTF?!? This is not in my head, and now I will be going home tomorrow in pain with no answers and a huge hospital bill!! All I can do is cry- why doesn't anyone want to figure out what this is???
