Hello @bbarbiee and welcome to Connect. You ask a good question and we have many members on Connect who have had sigmoid surgery and they have posted about their recovery.

Here are links to three discussion groups that you might find helpful,
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/removal-of-sigmoid-colon-due-to-diverticulitus/
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/sigmoid-colectomy/
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/sigmoid-colon-resection-10282019/
Please read through the posts and if you would like to ask any questions or post a comment to any of the members, just click on "Reply" and you can post your question or comment.

I would like to invite @thull, @burlguy, and @jerussia1 to this discussion. They have also had surgeries to deal with diverticulitis and might be able to offer some insight.

As you say that your surgery was about four weeks ago, how are you doing now? Any questions or problems you would like to discuss?

I have been finding out the last week what works and what doesn’t for me. Things seem to be going a little bit better. I stopped the opiate medication and started on Tylenol probably sooner than I should’ve but I did not want to be taking the opiates. Maybe that was my issue with the pain. Still have a little aches and pains here but I have found if I make sure I get up and walk for five times a day for 10 to 20 minutes it has helped relieve a lot of things. I am glad I found this connect site. It’s so nice to connect with people that have been through the same thing. I realize everybody’s experiences are different but you never know when the same things going to come up with somebody else has gone through. Thank you so much for your guidance. I appreciate it I will check out the other posts

I am about your age and had the same surgery 5 months, ago. I also had the similar situation leading up to eventually having the correct diagnosis/colonoscopy/surgery scheduled. I have read it is a somewhat rare condition. Things do start to get back to normal about four months after the surgery. It is a new normal and not exactly like things before you started to feel sick. The pain will slowly start to dissipate as your digestion becomes healthier. When you are ready you can start to introduce and tolerate more types of food.

I had this same surgery almost one year ago. No cancer, just diverticula strangling the sigmoid. Most of my sigmoid was removed. My recovery was very good. I felt pretty good after one month. I kept a diary of my bowel movements as they were sporadic and immediate! This helped me see I was actually slowly making improvement. I was 75 when I had the surgery.

Hi,

I have a 17 year history of diverticulitis and had Sigmoid Colon Resection 3 weeks ago. I am 65 yrs.
My recovery is going ok but struggling with what food intake balances with my recovering colon. My Dr has me on a soft and moderate fiber diet. Then slowly adding food I had eaten before surgery. If I eat food that doesn't agree with my colon I make several trips to the bathroom plus pain in my lower abdomen. I started to log a food diary.
This process is frustrating.