Diet taboos for hysteroscopy surgery

Diet taboos are based on the stage. Strictly avoid water and fasting within 6 hours after surgery (4-8 hours in some cases). Avoid spicy, gas-producing, and blood-activating foods within 1-2 weeks after surgery. Raw and cold foods can be adjusted according to your own body constitution, and there is no need to blindly apply one-size-fits-all.

When they were just pushed out of the operating room, most of them were still dizzy, and their throats were so dry that they were almost smoking. Their family members were already waiting beside them with warm water and millet porridge. Listen to my advice, no matter how thirsty you are at this time, you have to endure it. Most hysteroscopy surgeries use general intravenous anesthesia, and it takes time to metabolize anesthetic drugs. Even if you are awake and able to talk normally, the swallowing reflex may not have fully recovered. Drinking water or eating something at this time can easily cause choking in the trachea, and in severe cases, aspiration pneumonia can occur. This is not an alarmist. I met a 28-year-old girl in the outpatient clinic before. She just thought she was in good health. She secretly drank half a cup of pearl milk tea bought by her husband just 3 hours after the operation. She choked on the spot and turned purple. She ended up being hospitalized in the respiratory department for 5 days before being discharged. It was originally a day surgery that could be performed on the same day, but instead she suffered a lot.

Many hospitals now allow patients to take a small sip of warm water for 4 hours after surgery based on their anesthesia metabolism. If you have gastroesophageal reflux, or have severe anesthesia reactions, or feel nauseous and vomiting when you wake up, it may even take up to 8 hours before you can eat. You don’t have to compare yourself to others, just follow the arrangements of the nurse in charge of your bed. They manage dozens or hundreds of post-surgery patients every day, which is much more reliable than trying to figure it out on your own.

After returning home from the hospital, many people are told to take supplements by their elders as soon as they enter the house. Stewed chicken with ginseng, angelica, astragalus, and water with brown sugar, longan, and red dates. Three meals a day are not the same. This is actually a serious situation. If you only have a hysteroscopy, and you scrape some endometrium and send it for biopsy, the wound is very small, and the amount of post-operative bleeding is also very small. In fact, you don’t need to be too careful about dietary restrictions. It’s okay to eat some supplements if you want. But if you are undergoing surgery with relatively large wounds such as submucosal myomectomy, separation of intrauterine adhesions, and mediastinal resection, you really should not touch these blood-activating ingredients within 1 week after surgery. There was a 30-year-old patient who had a 3cm submucosal fibroid. On the second day after the operation, her mother heard that Angelica sinensis can replenish blood, so she stewed a whole pot of Angelica sinensis chicken soup. She drank two large bowls of it, and the amount of bleeding that night exceeded her menstrual flow, and her pants and sheets were all dirty.

Many people tend to ignore the impact of gas-producing foods. In fact, many people suffer from this problem after surgery. During hysteroscopic surgery, it is necessary to inject uterine distending fluid into the uterine cavity and hold up the uterus to see clearly what is going on inside. It is inevitable that a small amount of fluid will flow into the abdominal cavity to stimulate the intestines. Coupled with the influence of anesthesia, intestinal peristalsis will naturally occur in the first two or three days after the operation. Slow down, at this time, if you drink soy milk, milk, eat indigestible foods such as sweet potatoes, taro balls, and glutinous rice, and then drink iced Coke or something, the gas in the intestines cannot be discharged, and the stomach will be bloated like an inflated balloon. The pain is really no less than dysmenorrhea. Last month, there was a little girl who had just graduated. On the day she was discharged from the hospital, she took her friends to have a hot pot meal, drank two large glasses of iced Coke, and ate a cheese sweet potato. She started to have stomach pains when she got home. She thought it was postoperative bleeding. She hurried to the hospital and took a plain abdominal X-ray. She was full of gas. She was prescribed some medicine to promote flatulence. She spent half an hour in the toilet before she recovered. When she came out, her face was pale and she said she would never eat randomly again.

As for the question of whether raw or cold food can be eaten, which everyone is arguing about the most, there is really no need to go to that extreme. Some doctors say you should never touch it, while others say you can eat it as long as you don’t have any reaction after eating it normally. Both opinions are reasonable. If you usually like to drink iced milk tea and eat iced watermelon, and you don’t have diarrhea or stomachache after eating it, it’s okay to eat a small amount of iced drinks 3 days after the operation. I have a nurse sister who drank iced Americano the day after a hysteroscopy, and nothing happened. But if you usually get stomachaches, diarrhea, or menstrual cramps that make you break into a cold sweat when you eat ice, it’s better not to touch it for half a month after the operation. Otherwise, the ice will stimulate intestinal spasm and cause the uterus to contract. The pain will be yours. There is no need to take this risk.

The same goes for spicy food. It doesn’t mean that you can’t even touch a chili after surgery. If you are a friend from the Sichuan and Chongqing area who doesn’t like spicy food, eating mildly spicy food is like drinking water. It’s perfectly fine to eat spicy home-cooked food for a week after the surgery. However, if you usually get angry and constipated when eating spicy food, you should tolerate it for two weeks. Otherwise, you will have less activity after the surgery. If you squat on the toilet for more than ten minutes with constipation, high abdominal pressure will easily lead to wound bleeding. There is no need to suffer this crime.

In fact, these so-called taboos are essentially to make your recovery smoother and avoid unnecessary sins. If you accidentally get greedy and eat something you shouldn't, don't be too anxious. As long as you don't have any abnormalities such as bleeding more than menstruation, obvious stomach pain, or fever, there is no need to scare yourself. If you are really not sure whether you can eat it or not, just ask your surgeon directly. After all, everyone’s surgical situation and physical constitution are different. The experience of others can only be used as a reference. What suits you is the best.