Bleeding from surgical wounds

[davek]

It's been almost 2 weeks since my small bowel resection surgery and since the surgery I hadn't bled once.

I was really constipated though and hadn't gone for 50+ hours and finally went today after a lot of pushing hard small nugget stools out. This caused A) my anus insides to bleed, which is normal and not too weird and B) my surgical wound across the midsection to start pouring out dark blood. Took about 30 mins for it to stop even holding guaze against it. But then when I went to urinate (which uses those same muscles right above the groin where the cut is) it started to pour out dark blood all over again and then took another 30 mins to stop.

I talked to my surgeon and he shrugged it off as not a big deal and to just see him on monday to look at the wound. He said if I was really worried about the blood loss to go to the ER when I feel like I'm bleeding too much.

The problem is how do I know when I'm bleeding too much :\

Has anyone else had experiences with surgical wounds bleeding days/weeks after the surgery? Is it really a minor thing that I shouldn't worry about? I'm worried that everytime I urinate today or [shudder] have a bowel movement it's going to start bleeding all over again.

Also the wound is still under the see through white bandages so I can't really wash it out. It's just been sitting there with crusted dried blood for almost 2 weeks now. I was told that the bandages will either fall out on their own or the surgeon will take them out when he feels it's time. I saw him on thursday and he didn't feel it was time to remove them yet.

On the plus side, with the excretion of all this dark blood the cut, which had swelled up and been all tough and puffy and a little reddish is now not so puffed and tender and not reddish.

 

[Guest]

i've also had a few abdo surgeries, and not had that amount of bleeding either. i think if it happened to me i would've done what you have Dave, and told the surgeon. now that you have, and he's obviously not too concerned, you can probably relax a bit, and hang on till you see him.

maybe it was just backed up blood from the actual procedure, which had to come out, and now you'll start to heal properly...?

keep an eye on your temperature.. if it spikes, or anything else changes, i'd go down to A&E.

 

[davek]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing my surgeon tomorrow. On the phone he said maybe it was a little infected so maybe he'll give me some anti-biotics or at least re-dress the wound and maybe throw a few stitches in.

After it stopped bleeding yesterday it was fine until this afternoon when I had a bowel movement. A few mins after the movement when I was all relieved that it hadn't bled it started bleeding very slightly and then about 10 mins later it started pouring blood for about 10 mins and then stopped. If it's going to pour out blood for 10-30 mins everytime I have a bowel movement, then I need to get something done about it.

The wound's been hard, swollen, and puffed up like a pouch for these two weeks from the surgery. I would have thought it was infected but I haven't had any temperatures and when I saw the surgeon and he felt it last thursday he thought it was perfectly normal for a 2 week old big cut. Will see if he changes his mind tomorrow.

 

[mommy1st]

I'm glad that you're seeing the surgeon tomorrow. I have never had bleeding from my wound after surgery actually they said to call immediately if I have any bleeding or discharge from the surgery site. Let us know how you make out because I can't believe that having that much bleeding can be normal. Good Luck.

 

[daisy_dueller]

Wow Dave...that actually sounds scary...did you express to your surgeon how bad the bleeding was? Because I'm sure if he knew it was 10-30 minutes every time you had a BM, he would tell you to go to the ER...I would go anyways if I were you, just to be safe. It can never hurt to check with someone. Let us know what happens though...I didn't have any problem with blood or any kind of draining whatsoever from my incision, which is 6 inches long...form my belly button to my pubic bone...

 

[davek]

I went up to see the surgeon today (unfortunately I live about 90 mins away, so the 3 hour round trip drive is going to get old pretty soon with the constant trips. I've got to go back there again in a week and then the week after) and he said I had some sort of hemotosis or something where all the old blood had built up and caused the cut to be all swollen up so he cut open the wound and drained the old blood out and is now letting the wound heal from the inside. This means he stuffed a wet guaze with disinfectent inside the open wound and then taped a piece of big guaze over it to cover it. Now a nurse is going to come to my house and remove the packed in wet guaze and pack in a new wet guaze twice a day until the wound has closed up completely. The doc said this will take about 3 weeks. He gave me a new perscription of vicodin to take for a few more weeks as well as colace stool softeners and said I can live normally and the pain should lessen each day as the wound heals up. He said it's not a big deal because it's just a deep skin wound and above the internal organs so it's not like the internal organs are going to fall out. Still he said it's going to look nasty so it's better if I let a nurse deal with it for at least the start.

The doctor's office had a really hard time finding a nurse service that could be available anytime soon. But eventually they found one that could start tomorrow morning. So the doc said not to worry about changing it tonight and just sleep on it and tomorrow change it out.

So yeah I'm sort of back to square 1 on the healing despite it being 2 weeks in, but hopefully this time things should heal smoothly and not swollen and sore and full of pain. I'll see how I'm doing after a few days of this and maybe if it's not big deal I'll be out and about eating, shopping, and having fun by the end of this week like I was just starting to do again on thur/fri before the whole bleeding ordeal. Otherwise I'll just sit around home and watch movies for a few more weeks.

 

[Guest]

i'm so pleased it's just that, and can be dealt with by the visiting nurse. i was quite worried when you described just how much blood you were losing!

i had a similar thing with my incision.. about a 3 inch part of it broke down, came away from the stitched area, and i also had a district nurse coming daily to pack it with gauze, then silastic foam.. it worked quite amazingly. the body automatically heals upwards towards the gauze/foam so each time they pack it, the packing will be slightly smaller until there's no hole to speak of.

hope it all goes ok from here

 

[mommy1st]

Ding I had a similar thing happen with one of my surgeries, the area around my belly button opened up due to the use of prednisone before surgery. Luckily my sister is a nurse and she was able to pack my wound for me.
davek good luck and now lets really let the healing begin. Hopefully you will start to feel better soon.

 

[davek]

Thanks for the support. Glad to hear from people who've gone through similar situations.

I think after I get it packed once tomorrow morning by the nurse whose coming over I'll be good to go for the rest of the healing. Today I was nervous about having a bm, but eventually had one and everything was ok so now I know I can eat, drink, and use the bathroom without fear. But I'm still a little nervous about how it's going to feel/look (I'm going to try to close my eyes and not see what's going on) when the packing is removed and a new one is inserted tomorrow. I just tend to get nervous about my first time with everything.

 

[mommy1st]

The worst thing about having a wound packed for me was when they removed the first packing and I saw how much was in there. It really freaked me out, so be prepared that it may seem like alot now but within a few days it will be less and less. Good luck.

 

[scared_mom]

That sounds scary! Im glad your feeling better. I'm a bit scared about the idea of a temporary colostomy, but after reading that, I'm liking the idea a lot better! :eek2:

How long did it take you guys to recover from surgery?

 

[danman]

Mom,
I had a temp ileostomy and I was back to work 2 weeks after surgery. It depends on how well everything goes, but mine was fine

 

[daisy_dueller]

Glad to hear it was nothing serious... I was actually quite worried about you! Take advantage of the time you have to heal, and make everyone else do things for you!!

I was a little confused when you said they gave you colace...you said in a different post that you still had D...so it makes me wonder why they would give you a stool softener for that...weird.

 

[kello82]

hey dave. missed this thread earlier, but im glad to hear that it seems to be underr control now. after reading you first few posts up top, i got really worried. i was like "oh nooo this sounds awful"
ugh. i shiver at the thought of packing a wound. ive seen things like that on tv before, oof they freak me out.
i have an incision of my own atm, just had a temp ileostomy put in place, and am slightly worried about infection, but your story makes me thankful that i am not bleeding like so!
i hope it starts healing correctly for you now.