By As I just had a double whammy surgical procedure & was right all along
On Wednesday this week, I had a laparoscopy to remove endometriosis and hysterectomy. You could say it was quite a significant abdominal double whammy anyone could have. My path to a faster recovery doesn’t work for everyone, and I understand some people may be on the ultimate severe front. So each person takes longer or shorter timeframes to recover. My intention for this post is to bring home an important point. If you give your body the nutrients, it needs before surgery. Then, you have a higher chance of recovering rapidly and feeling a lot better sooner than you anticipated. I’m only 43, and I was initially worried about my recovery time. The usual space of time required is more than a month, and my surgeon warned me that I might have to take a month off from work. That’s impossible for someone who has many dreams and wishes to fulfil. And it’s also doubly impossible if you have a family to look after. So, I wasn’t going to let this stop me — even though I was well aware it would slow me down considerably. But that’s ok because we all need to slow down sometimes. So it’s good for us to smell the roses sometimes and develop more of a conscious awareness of each foot placed in front of another. After spending most of 2021 in hospital and home looking after my mum with cancer, I needed to slow down. Now I have to look after myself in 2022. I can’t give you any scientific research because I’m a hacker who applies theories to my life situation and returns to assess the results. I like to be in the trenches and work things out for myself based on the ongoing research on food and lifestyle. It wasn’t too hard to develop a strategy to stick by for over a month before surgery. I became focused on making a recovery a lot less painful. I’ve already had two laparoscopies in my time (and when I was a lot younger), so I’m well aware of how sick these procedures can make you. I wasn’t sure how having a hysterectomy would turn out as an add on to the drama. Plus, I have to let go of lifting weights for a while — that’s a tricky thing for someone as fit as I am. But again, we all need a break, and a month isn’t going to hurt anyone. I want to share my simple yet really effective post-operative food plan that helped me immensely recover. This is what it allowed me to do:
- I was able to get up and walk the following day after surgery without the need for painkillers.
- I was able to gain a decent form of clarity in my mind on day two due to proper flushing out of the toxins of anesthetics and all the other dreadful drugs I had to take
- I stopped taking painkillers on day three as I didn’t need them (and I only took 2 when I got home on day two — to be on the safe side)
I’m not fond of pain killers, as I felt a lot more wired and spent most of the day in a cloud of lethargy and honestly feeling quite sick too. I also want to highlight something significant that contributed to my recovery. My surgeon (God love her) knew how ill anesthetic made me feel. I have spent days vomiting with incisions in my stomach. This is dangerous, and it’s within their innate care factor to make things a lot easier for you (and that they don’t have to go back into emergency to operate on you again!). So may I recommend you discuss the following with them:
- Make sure you do tell all doctors involved quite clearly that you get very sick from anesthetic and
- You wish for them to take as much of the carbon dioxide out of your body as they can.
These two steps will help your anesthetist and surgeon work together in providing you with anti-nausea remedies and using other medication to alleviate the sickness. Honestly, guys, the points below was all I did. If the doctors do their bit, then your side of recovery will be sweet, having gone down a pre-surgery nutrition path.
One: I had antioxidant smoothies every single morning after my workout
My smoothies didn’t contain anything artificial, and I used the best quality organic ingredients I could find.
- Either frozen kale, broccoli or spinach
- Mixed berries or wild berries
- Sometimes I used tart cherries or pomegranates
- Two small slices of frozen bananas to make the smoothie creamy
- 1/4 piece of frozen pink dragonfruit
- 1/4 piece of organic coconut flesh
- A scoop of vegan protein powder
- Teaspoon of spirulina
- Dash of cayenne pepper
It is blended to make an icy fruit smoothie, topped with keto granola, coconut flakes, honey and cinnamon.
Two: I gave up all animal protein apart from eggs
I wasn’t eating a lot of meat, but I had a habit of overeating chicken. From what I’ve researched, chicken has a lot of toxins, mainly in the skin (and I would prefer eating the skin). It would cause me a lot of gastrointestinal upsets, so I decided that perhaps something in it must not agree with me. I felt a world of relief when I stopped eating it and just had eggs every second or third day, basing my nutrition on antioxidant-rich veggies and my smoothies daily. Eggs are great for healing because they have more vitamins and minerals than your regular meats. They are pretty easy to put in different dishes and very portable when on the run.
Three: I took a high potent krill oil supplement
Because I wasn’t eating any seafood, I knew I had to add some omega three for healing and inflammation relief. I found a good supplement from my local pharmacy and started taking it. I did feel a difference in my recovery rate from exercise and that I wasn’t as sore after a workout. Even if you aren’t having surgery, Krill oil is excellent for joints and is a lot more potent than the Omega 3 found in salmon.
Four: I had regular, gentle sports massages to ease any muscle tension and eliminate inflammation
I made sure I had a massage once per fortnight to help relax my body and mind and eliminate inflammation in the muscles. I wanted to be as supple as possible, and knew massage would be the best way to help with this. I spend many hours on my laptop working and writing in my spare time, which adds to the tension in particular regions. Even if you try out a massage once per month, it will significantly affect your mobility — not to mention your ability to relax.
Key Takeaways
I believe I recovered so fast because my body is healthy, and I eat very well 98% of the time. You really can’t go wrong when you are strong and eat healthy — no matter what age. Eliminating as much inflammation in our foods whilst eating a diet rich in antioxidant’s will help you in your time of need. I didn’t think that having two procedures at once would be easy — I was waiting to be somewhat bedridden for at least a week, and I prepared for it by having a buffer of time allocated to resting. Although I would not recommend pushing yourself, healing rates are a lot faster for fit & healthy people. I generally walk daily and lift weights 3–4 times per week. Dedicating to being active and healthy as a lifestyle habit pays off when you need it most. I’m not sure of any doctor who would give a patient a one month pre-surgical nutritional and exercise plan. That could be the one thing that’s lacking in medicine today — giving power back to the people because we have absolute control of what goes into our mouths daily and how active we can be. So, next time you have some surgery planned to go ahead — it’s essential to psyche yourself up for the big day and plan as much as possible with your nutrition and body awareness. No one want’s to be bedridden for weeks and months on end. That’s an absolute joy killer. But, if you can take simple steps to avoid it, then why not? I’d be interested to know if anyone else did a pre-surgical eating and lifestyle plan to help with recovery. Also, feel free to tell me what worked for you to help others.
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