Post-Op Activity Advice

I’ll focus on just one aspect of the post-op period, which I’ll define as the first three months…physical activity.

If you are someone who does routine, regular activity, be that golf, running, weight lifting, yoga, whatever, MAKE SURE you discuss with your surgeon after the surgery before you leave the hospital exactly what you usually do, and what they recommend doing/not doing. how to return, when, etc. “Physical activity” after surgery is not one-size-fits-all. E.g., you can walk right away, but you can’t ride a bike for 3 months. And everything in between depending on the motions involved, the weights involved. Also, because each surgery is slightly different, there may be some things which apply in your individual case which only the surgeon would know about after having been in there and knowing exactly what they did inside, so the generic advice online might not be right for you.

If you are not routinely physically active, at a bare minimum you should commit to walking as soon as possible after the surgery (like, the afternoon after!), and every day forward. Walking is critical to (a) get your bowels moving again, (b) keep air moving through your lungs to prevent pneumonia, and (c) enhance the body’s healing powers by increasing blood and oxygen flow.

Also, the less opioid medication you use (oxycontin, Vicodin, etc), the better as far as bowel function is concerned. Many/most of us after laparoscopic prostatectomy got by just fine on only Tylenol after leaving the hospital.

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