Getting your appendix taken out - anyone?

Yeah dude that shit sucked. Came out of nowhere when i was 16. The day before Thanksgiving. It started with general abdominal pain which lasted all day. After eating dinner it migrated to the lower right side of my abdomen and my dad started getting worried about my appendix (he had his taken out around the same age). I went to my room to try to get some sleep and all of a sudden I wake up shaking uncontrollably. After I fumbled my way downstairs to the kitchen my dad sees me shaking like mad and throws me in the car to the ER.

Thank goodness I was processed immediately, because after about a gallon of apple juice (which I HATE) laced with the CT tracer and my actual CTS they found out it was about to burst It was too swollen for anything but traditional surgery. Who knew a 3" incision would make recovery such a bitch. Spent my whole damn thanksgiving break (4 days) in the hospital trying to devise a way to make it to the restroom w/o walking.

I'll tell you one thing though, after being awake for 24 hours, when they covered me up with that warm blanket and put me under I felt like I was in heaven. Literally the most comfortable I've EVER been The vics afterward were fun too lolz.

 

that sounds like hell. i hate te thought of cuttin cut open and operated on, regardless if there is pain involved or you are zonked out. Still so weird to me

 

Never had mine taken out, glad you're okay man. May I ask what larascopic surgery is (or however you spell it lol)?

 

it was kind of a cool realization to come to after the fact, that someone had cut me open and taken a piece of me out.

 

yah happened in the middle of august this year..............

they had to do a spinal tap on me becuase of my asthma so when i awoke from surgery my middle all the way down were numb and i couldnt move them.

They also had to cut me open the traditional way because i dont see the point of having 5 small holes compared to 1 normal sized one.

Also my appendix was 10x the normal size it was so fucking big they doctors even took a picture of it and its on my fridge haha.


The worst part i think was when the spinal tap didnt heal right or something and my spinal fluid was leaking it made you very light headed and dizzy and the worst headache EVER it hurt so bad it had me puking.

so they had to take some blood and put it into my spine to clot up and stop the fluid from leaking and the first one didnt take it sucked alot


General Experience: fucking sucked balls

The good: i got some hydro's lol

 

Had a different laparoscopic procedure. It can be pretty harsh for a while.

You should have gotten at least a week off before returning to work. It can take up to weeks for your body to adjust to the changes, and all the inflammation to go down.

They have to cut through muscle and fiddle around inside to remove an appendix. There will be a bit of a recovery time, and you can have some VERY unorthodox seeming side effects, but in the long run, they're pretty normal.

An appendectomy though is a very simple procedure. Just follow your doctors advice, rest properly, and you should be up to full speed in a month or so. If you're young and healthy it will make it faster.

The procedure is such that it can actually be performed outside of a hospital, by someone trained to do it. Military special forces are trained to do this surgery, because it's such a common ailment, and can be potentially very dangerous if not handled quickly. Fortunately, it hurts like fuck when you need to get it done, so most people don't delay going to the hospital (As in your case).

Mine was a surgery for acid reflux, and they made 5 separate incisions. It took me about 2 months to recover to about 99%. I'd say within a week though, I was able to do most normal things, I just didn't want to run or lift anything heavy for a long while, and the surgery for reflux is a bit more invasive than for an Appendectomy.

Note: You may get some pain medications, but even if the pain is gone, take it easy a while. Your body experiences pain to tell you "hey dickwad, stop doing that!!!!"

An old doctors joke:

Patient says, "Doctor it hurts when I lift my arm like this!"
Doctor says, "Well...don't lift your arm like that...."

Smoke a joint, it will probably help with the pain, inflammatory, and relaxation.

 

Cool video

I'm a medic, so I kinda like seeing that stuff

They seal it off on both sides of the incision, the closest to the body to reduce bleeding, and the closest to the appendix....to keep it from seeping fluids/infection, etc.

Appendix has been long found to be useless in humans. It's a leftover organ, from days when we had a much more plant oriented diet....believed to be a reservoir for additional digestion...kinda like a cows multiple stomachs.

As it is, in our bodies different things are digested at different points. Ie....only water and alcohol are really absorbed in the stomach. Fats are dissolved primarily in the duodenum, or first part of the intestine....and as you go throughout the intestine different things are absorbed. Fiber is absorbed slowly in the latter parts of the intestines, and only water is absorbed at nearly every part of the digestion tract. The appendix might have, at one point, either helped to break down complicated to break down materials (Grass, for example), or simply been responsible for absorbing nutrients that we no longer need at our current evolution. Either way, it's obsolete, but hasn't been phased out by evolution yet.

As a relatively useless organ, it's highly prone to inflammation. With modern science we just cut it out. 15,000 years ago it would have killed you, ensuring people with full fledged appendixes in tact died out.......and those with less problems, or less appendix to get infected....survived on.

Appendix removal is one of mankinds earliest "successful" surgery's, ensuring that people with bunk appendixes live on, and so it just kinda keeps sticking with us

But, you gotta know a bit about medicine, and evolution, to bite that.

There's a semi-popular theory that modern medicine continues to keep people with negative traits alive long enough to reproduce, and thus just keep passing them on. I'm glad your ok though hehe

 

lol, yeh i had mine taken out with laparoscopic surgery as well. The best part was waking up after the surgery, completely fucked up an anesthetics lol goodtimess

 

I actually had it taken out the night before I was supposed to turn myself in to go to jail the next morning. If it hadn't gotten bad enough that I knew something was seriously wrong I probably would have died in jail, they would have just thought I was some junkie in withdrawal. I got really lucky with the timing.