Post Operative care of perianal surgery:
The perianal surgery will be done under general/ spinal or local anaesthesia. The most common anaesthesia given is spinal anaesthesia. Postoperatively after an hour or so you will get sensations in your legs and you will feel mild to moderate operative site pain that will be covered by intravenous analgesic drugs. Later you will be shifted to your room. In the case of stepler hemorrhoidectomy and laser surgery, the pain will be less as compared to conventional surgery.
You will be having a per urethral catheter for drainage of urine that will be removed next morning. Next morning you will be given a sitz bath in which you need to sit in a warm water tub for hot fomentation of the perianal surgical area. The same day or the next morning, you will be discharged from the hospital.
Any peri anal wound takes around 6 to 8 weeks to heal. You may get scared by this long period but there is nothing to worry about, as there will be no wound in LASER and stapler surgery of piles. In case of skin tag excision, incision of abscess or in fistula surgery, there will be a wound, which may give some
amount of pain for 2 to 3 days. Which will be covered by good oral analgesic drugs. The wound takes time to heal and one needs to keep the area clean after motion every day and take a sitz bath. But there is no or mild pain in this healing period. You need to visit your surgeon regularly to see the progress of healing of the wound. Most often there is no follow up required once the wound is healed completely.
During the whole of this 6 to 8 weeks period, one needs to take laxatives to avoid constipation and take medicines as advised by the surgeon.
To avoid perianal problems in the future one needs to avoid constipation, keep the area hygienic and consult a surgeon in case of any doubt. To avoid constipation one may follow these 3 rules : (1) Drink 4 litres of water daily. (2) Eat a big bowl full of salad like cucumber, carrot, tomatoes. (3) Brisk walks for 1 hour daily. These things make the large intestine to move normally and avoid constipation.
Hope I could solve your queries of post-operative care of perianal surgery to some extent. Regards
Dr Shama Shaikh
General and Laparoscopic Surgeon, Pune.