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Post-operative pain: Anyone have pain 8 weeks+ after surgery?
My name is Brad. I am 65 years old and was diagnosed with stage 1 prostate cancer in August of 2025. The doctors initially wanted to do active surveillance. However, I have a family history and due to my brothers more aggressive cancer, I decided to have a decipher score done on my biopsy. It came back moderate to high risk of it turning more aggressive in the future. I had laparoscopic robotic surgery on November 11th of this year. It was successful but difficult due to my anatomy and being 70 pounds overweight my surgeon said. He did not recommend any more pelvic surgeries unless I lost considerable weight. I am 7 weeks post-op and still dealing with post-operative pain which has prevented me from going back to work. I have minimal pelvic discomfort but more pain by the three ports on the right side of my abdomen. I cannot sleep on my side without pain and am sleeping in a recliner. I cannot bend over to pick something off the floor. The ports on the left are not tender but the three on the right are. They are the larger incisions. I am still functionally not to where I need to be pain wise. The pain level is between 1 and 5 depending on my activity. I am going to schedule an appointment with my surgeon by the end of the week if I am not better. Has anyone experienced similar symptoms after 7 or 8 weeks post op. Wondering if it could be a hernia or adhesions. Look forward to your response.
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Hi @bradk, I pulled your message into a new discussion about post-operative pain to bring in others to the discussion like @spino @maxvt @michaeldjung @hlieberman1 @hbp @mws, who may have experiences or tips to share.
Brad, were you able to schedule a follow-up with your surgeon? What did she/he say?
@bradk Man, I had zero, yes zero, pain after the RALP. My ONLY issue post-op was that I could not sleep; I rang for a nurse and told her such. After checking, she said I could have Dilaudid; I asked if that would knock me out (I was uncomfortable) ; she said it would. So she administered some, and I finally slept. Later that morning, my surgeon checked in on me to say everything went well. On his way out, he told me if I had pain to take an advil.
I would advise STRONGLY to do a few weeks of pre-op AND post-op PT to learn proper muscle control. Since my RALP in Aug 2022, I have zero incontinence. For this I thank the wonderful lady at a Baylor Scott & White PT clinic in Austin TX.
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2 ReactionsI suggest you ask your doctor about post-operative physical therapy in hindsight I wish I had done more physical therapy after the surgery not just for incontinence but also for recovery of the muscle function I am doing physical therapy now but my physical therapist is I compensated by using other muscles because of the weakness in the core muscles now this takes some time to resolve
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2 ReactionsYou should talk to your surgeon and be examined in detail. It is not usual to have that level of pain after 2 mos. but I guess we are all different. It is good that pain is only around incisions since that possibly points to local muscle pain and not any deeper infection or organ involvement.
Are your scars completely closed (healed) and just pink in color ? Or there is some serious redness and some oozing present ? Is pain there only when you engage muscles or it hurts when you press on that side ? Does pain radiate downward after you release pressure? Regarding hernia - it is always a possibility and that is why your doctor should see you and examine you to check for that.
Wishing you fast forward healing and complete resolution of pain .
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