incision size

[susy3]

Having laporascopic surgery on a small cyst.  How large of an incision is it and is there a big scar?  Doc, said I can go back to work in a week.  Has anyone recovered that quickly? Thank you

[mhelen59]

I had surgery on June 19th to remove a 6 cm cyst and my right ovary.  I ended up with 3 very small incisions,  One in my belly button that 5 weeks later I can't even notice, one 4-5 inches below , that is 1/4 of an inch and one to the right of my belly button that is 1 inch long.  The larger one was the only one that bothered me and only a little, I stopped the pain meds after 3 days.  I'm pretty sure only the 1 inch incision will leave a scar and probably not too noticeable.  Of course I have a 3 inch keloid scar from a gall bladder operation I had 20 years ago so for me its not too big a deal.

I was off work for 2 weeks.  My doctor put me off for that long.  I probably could have gone back after a week but I have a sit down job - if I had a physical job it would have been rough.  Also at 1 week none of my clothes fit, as it was at 2 weeks I still had to buy a couple pairs of pants to wear.  I was still pretty tired at 2 weeks too and other than work really took it easy.  I think for me 3 was the magic number and in a perfect world I would have stayed off for 3 weeks.  By then I was almost back to normal and could squeeze into some of my pants.  Now 5 weeks after I am feeling great and am back exercising (I waited 4 weeks to do anything other than walk) and most of my clothes fit again.  

Hope this helps but remember everyone's body heals differently, so your recovery could be quite different.  Also, some good advice I received on this forum was to remember even if your incisions feel fine your insides were operated on and they need time to heal too. Good luck with your surgery and hopefully even if you have to go back in a week you will be resting and taking it easy the rest of the day.
Mary