Does everyone here, when they get a cold for example, get it a lot worse than everyone else… I do, no matter what the ailment is, I’ll always get it worse or last longer… my body just doesn’t have an immune system I think… or one that works properly anyway!!
The reason I am asking, I have just been told I’ve got to have a hysterectomy!! Quite a major op! Has anyone had this op and how did it effect your symptoms??
I’m nervous that the recovery time of 6 weeks, will be a lot longer!! Or my symptoms will go into overdrive!
But there’s no evidence MS has anything to do with an imapired immune system. If anything, it’s an over-active or misguided immune system, that’s attacking things that aren’t enemies.
The reason you feel worse when you have a cold or other sometimes minor infections is probably that your body temperature is slightly raised (to fight the infection), and increased body temperature is well-known for aggravating MS symptoms. So it isn’t that you’re actually getting the cold worse, it’s that it’s aggravating your underlying condition (assuming that’s MS).
As far as I know, surgery does not result in an increase in body temperature (unless you were unlucky enough to catch an infection), so should not play havoc with existing symptoms in the same way.
I believe people with MS are recommended to have all necessary surgery, and that they’re not considered to be at extra risk.
I don’t know whether you would take longer to recover or not. Somebody recently was saying similar about a C-section, but if true, I’ve no idea why it should be, as the immune system definitely isn’t weak or non-existent in MS.
Maybe it’s just a reflection that being fatigued makes everything slower, including recovering from an op?
That makes sense Tina… I did ask a doctor once, and he explained why it takes longer to recover from some things (like you said not necessarily the ailment lasting longer) but I can’t remeber what he said. It made sense at the time. :-/
All I could think was is the anything else that could go wrong for you at the moment?
One positive side to this new development is maybe once the op is over you will feel better as the reason for needing the op will of gone and the symptoms it caused will end.
Secondly you will be in a situation where you HAVE to rest.
I do hope it all goes well and you will have some clear water at the end of it all.
I had to have a hysterectomy about three years ish after my first ms symptoms.
I think the question you have to ask yourself is why you need a hysterectomy in the first place? I had quite a few problems and I have no regrets whatsoever. Not having a period to deal with monthly in conjunction with all the other crappy symptoms of ms is one (big) thing less in my books. No having to buy sanitary wear - I can quite happily ‘pass’ that aisle in the supermarket, lol. And spend the money on a coffee for ME!
I won’t beat around the bush. It did take a while to get over. Day by day I didn’t feel as though I was getting anywhere, but looking back a week ago, two weeks ago, etc, I realised I was. Ask for lots of pain relief when you go home and take things slowly. As for me I had a 2.5 and a 5 year old to cope with though, two very sick close relatives (cancer) and very little help. Consider getting a cleaner and any other help you can get, in place before you go into hospital would definitely be no 1 priority if I were you. Maybe contact adult social services on that one - just phone them. They’ve been really helpful to me recently.
Good luck - I’m sure you’ll be fine - it just takes time and, of course, patience!
I have had several operations since being diagnosed with MS and the MS hasn’t made any difference to the actual operation or the the recovery time expected.
As others mentioned having MS doesn’t actually make colds and things worse. If anything having a slightly hyper active immune system can make minor bugs less evil but having even a mild infection can make the MS symptoms flare up and be more unpleasant especially fatigue which will certainly make things like a common cold “feel” worse.
I also had a hyster done about 3 years after being diagnosed with probable MS and I had mine done by laparoscopy and it was a complete doddle. I was out of hospital 48 hours after surgery, only needed paracetamol for a few days after being at home and by the end of Week 1 felt perfectly fit and had zero pain. Which was really hard as I still wasn’t allowed to lift or do anything strenuous for another 5 weeks and I felt terrific! If I had just a teensy bit of discomfort it would have been easier to have not lifted things but I felt like a total fraud getting friends to help feed my horses etc when I felt so good.
I hope your op goes as well as mine did. I was really amazed at how easy it was. And enjoy the bliss of no more periods etc
