Gas and Bloating Part 2

It is now 3 days since I had my hernia surgery and I'm still not feeling better.  I finally got rid of the constipation with Milk of Magnesia but I am still very bloated.  I have been taking Gas Ex and not eating much but even water is bloating me.  All I have had today is tea and my protein decaf drink and a cup of sugar free pudding.  I look like I am pregnant and my stomach is very tender to touch.  It feels like the incision is being stretched out.  I am in pain whenever I move.  It is even causing me to be a little short of breath.  I am trying not to take too much pain meds because that just constipates me more.  Is this normal?  I don't remember getting this bloated before.  Is it time to call the doctor?

If you are really so bloated you look pregnant, I would call the doc.  I'd say some bloating is probably normal, but not that much.  And if you are short of breath, that is definitely a reason to call.

 I went through a week of that and until I got calcium magnesium (or whatever that horrible stuff is called)  and drank the bottle and was completely cleaned out, it did not go away.  It feels awful and I looked and felt pregnant.  Everything hurt, I couldn't eat either.
Maybe that would work=ask your Dr.

Sorry you are experiencing this ....it really stinks.

Thanks, I think that is pretty much what my doctor recommended, too.  He said I may still be backed up and told me to take Milk of Magnesia 3 times a day.  I have a bottle of magnesium citrate and I may take that instead.  If I can pysch myself up to drinking that awful stuff.  I don't know how I managed to get that down before when I had my colonoscopy.

 My Dr. told me to get a shot glass and fill it with it and drink it as I could.  It took me an hour and a half.  I also took a zofran before I started it because I was so nauseated then too.

It wasnt fun but in the end I felt like a new person.

Give an update and let me know how you do.

I hope you are feeling better by now and if now you have taking the magnesium citrate.  You need to find out if you problem is being backed up or if there is a problem with the surgery.  Having a bloating bulging in your abdomen is what got you into surgery in the first place -that is exactly what a hernia looks like - I have a huge bloated bulge everyday but I also have diarhea so I know it isnt' that I am backed up.

I will say that after the reversal of my iliostomy which my big open surgery that they actually closed ( my other open surgeries they left open) when I was constipated or if I ate too much, I would get excrutiating abdominal pains at night where I would actually cry and I would feel like my incision was going to split open.  Once I would have a bowel movement, the pain would go away.  It was a terrible experience but it happened almost everynight for quite sometime while I was healing and I do hope this doesn't happen to you.  This is how my bowels healed and it is a year later and it still happens sometimes.

If nothing helped, please call your surgeon or go to the ER