Table of Content
What is a hysterectomy?
This is a kind of surgery where the women uterus is removed due to treating a variety of clinical conditions. Generally, hysterectomy is conducted by a gynaecologist and also may be done to remove the fallopian tubes, cervix, or further adjacent structures. It may be partial or total as per the patient condition and form cancer to endometriosis.
The reason for doing a hysterectomy may vary in woman to woman. It may be for uterine fibroids that are causing bleeding, pain, or any kind of other problems. For example, uterine prolapsed, which causes the uterus to slide to a different position instead of being in the vaginal channel to its normal position it usually stays.
This type of surgery has a wide range of side effects, like stopping menstruating to not being able to get pregnant again. It would, at the same time, have an indirect impact on your body weight. Generally, this condition does not have a direct relation with weight loss, but in some cases, the symptom may occur.
Carry on your reading throughout the whole article to know more about this medical condition, its treatments, recovery, side effects, other related issues.
Type of hysterectomy
Depending on the condition of the disease, the doctors and health care providers give them different names, and also, according to that, the treatment procedures are different. Therefore it is very important to understand the difference clearly.
The expert doctors have mastered the art of the surgery, and according to the condition of the patent, the uterus female body is removed totally or partly. The types of this treatment depend on this process of removal of the productive system from the female body. The doctors take the necessary steps, which is the best option for the patient.
As we talked about earlier, we know that the types of hysterectomy depend on the surgical process. Now we are going to know them in details:
Supracervical Hysterectomy
- It is a type of surgery for treating the hysterectomy in a female body where the body of the uterus is removed, but the cervix remains intact. This process is capable of treating endometriosis or fibroids, which is a noncancerous condition in a body.
Hysterectomy with oophorectomy
- Here the doctor removes single or both of the ovaries, uterus, and occasionally the fallopian tubes.
Radical Hysterectomy
- This an option for treating a cancer
- In this process, the doctors may remove the top segment of vagina, uterus, nearly all of the tissue covering the cervix, cervix and occasionally the pelvic lymph nodes
Total Hysterectomy
- It is one of the most common types of this treatment
- In this process, the doctors leave the ovary and remove the cervix and uterus
Weight gain after hysterectomy
Whether hysterectomy directly linked to weight gain or loss is more likely under question. More research is needed to be sure about it. A successful hysterectomy does not lead to weight loss rather weigh gain. Researches show that when a patient has been done hysterectomy without having both of the ovaries removed, then she has a high risk of gaining weight.
When a patient has hysterectomy surgery, and both of the ovaries are removed; thereby, she will directly enter the menopause stage for some years. Afterwards, the patient can gain an average of up to five pounds of weight.
Many women maintain a regular exercise routine. When they go through this procedure of hysterectomy, all types of stressful activities are restricted for almost 6 weeks. So it hampers the daily exercise routine and causes weight gain temporarily.
You can do less impactful exercise, but that should be started after asking the respective doctor. After passing a few weeks, you may get permission taking the procedure of surgery under consideration. List of some less stressful activities are given below:
- Yoga
- Water aerobics
- Tai chi
- Swimming in less water
Taking care of the diet plan is also very important after surgery as it is interrelated with the weight gain fact. It also aids in the healing process of the body after the surgery. Take care of the diet of daily life by limiting junk foods and instead of that, take healthy food like vegetables and fresh fruits, take less calorie meat or lean meat, etc. Hysterectomy is one of the major types of surgery, so always try to be relaxed and concentrate on the recovery process. In some weeks, the patient’s physical condition will improve, which is good news rather than thinking much about a few pounds of weight gain.
Weight Loss after hysterectomy
How to Lose Weight After Hysterectomy? The answer depends, Losing weight is not normal for an aftereffect of hysterectomy. Sometimes nausea and feeing hard to intake food lead to temporary weight loss. But this happens due to the use of anaesthesia during the surgery. Lose weight after hysterectomy kept ovaries is quite a challenge to face.
Again, sometimes hysterectomy causes weight loss when they are used for treating cancers like uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, or endometrial cancer, and along with the treatment, chemotherapy is used. When a patient is given chemotherapy, she faces a number of side effects, including weight loss. That is why mistakenly weight loss is taken as an aftereffect of hysterectomy treatment.
Hysterectomy treatment helps to lessen heavy bleeding and chronic pain, which is caused by endometriosis, fibroids, or other related conditions. After taking treatment, the symptoms are resolved, and the patient senses lots of energy for physical activity that may lead to losing some weight after hysterectomy and ovary removal.
How to lose weight post-hysterectomy or after hysterectomy surgery?
Due to a major change in the hormonal balance after a hysterectomy surgery, it becomes too difficult for a patient to lose weight, particularly when ovaries are removed. As normally, the hysterectomy doesn’t cause a weight gain, but it happens if the ovaries are removed. The reason for this is very less female hormone productions, which is called progesterone and testosterone.
Two key ways of losing weight after hysterectomy are diet and exercise. Diet stands in number one as we can easily consume excess calories than we burn. So taking care of food intake is a must. Therefore one must follow a plan to maintain a healthy weight with care.
Here you are going to find some quick results of diet tips. Let’s first check for the forbidden one as they ruin the plan at the very beginning.
- Stop taking carbohydrates: That means no more pasta, pieces of bread, or any other types of grains like rice, etc.
- Stop drinking drinks with extra calories: Drinks such as juices, smoothies, sodas, coffee in a blended form or even alcohol, etc. these drinks have high dense calorie that increases the weight very fast.
- Stop eating syrups and sauces: salad dressing, sauces, syrups are highly loaded with fats or sugar. As an alternative to that, you can take vinegar in salad and lemon juice as a drink.
Now let’s go for the permitted steps.
- Take safe carbohydrates: There are some carbohydrates that are very good for boosting metabolism. Lots of vegetables, legumes, right kinds of fruits, and as fest can take some sweet potatoes.
- Take safe proteins: Lean meat, chicken, and fish are safe to take as protein for this type of patient.
- Drinks: Green tea and lots of water are very benefiting to health in this condition. Lemon juice sweetening with Stevia, which is a natural sweetener, can make a healthy drink and assist in losing weight.
As the second way, we can talk about exercises. But during the treatment period, any stressful exercise is harmful. Just try something easy and light in a regular manner. If you face constipation, then please try for any kind of fiber supplement.
Anyway, losing a big amount of weight is not at all normal in this situation. If this happens, quickly consult your doctor and look for the real causes of weight loss.
Hysterectomy, menopause and weight gain
After the removal of ovaries, you are going to go through early menopause. Though you are on your 20th, menopause is surely to come. Hysterectomy after menopause is a very complicated situation to explain. Conversely, if the ovaries are not required to be removed but only the uterus is removed, then menopause will not occur.
Research shows that it is three times more likely to gain weight if menopause occurs regarding port hysterectomy comparing to a natural one.
Side effects after hysterectomy surgery
Other than gaining weight, hysterectomy has many other side effects. After a hysterectomy, you will lose your ability to get pregnant and have babies and get into a menopause stage. After having these two side effects, mental health may get severely damaged. This may cause other side effects like a swing in your mood, insomnia, decrease in the sex desire, vaginal dryness, hot flashes, etc.
Also, some short period side effects may like pain in the cut area of the surgery, itching, or burning sensation there. Also, some numb feelings or redness, swelling, and bruising may occur. However, these short term side effects will vanish in the long run.
Hysterectomy complications
All kinds of hysterectomy can have some common complications like bleeding, infection, failure of the ovary, blood clots, damage in the ureter, vaginal problems, etc.
Hysterectomy recovery time
The recovery time mostly depends on the daily activities of the patient. Here we are going to talk about it in brief.
Vaginal or laparoscopic-assisted vaginal hysterectomy (LAVH):
It is a less surgical process than other ones. Mostly, the patient leaves the hospital on ht same day or the day next. A short period of two weeks can be the recovery time for this process. But almost 6 weeks would take for getting back to usual activities.
Robotic hysterectomy:
Here the full surgery is done by a robot. The uterus is removed and sometimes cervix. The recovery time and restrictions are as same as above. In this case, the patient comes back home on the same day or the next day.
Abdominal hysterectomy:
This is a critical process. 2 to 3 days can take to get back home. Full recovery time can be 6 to 8 weeks. Rest is very much essential in this case. No heavy exercise is allowed, or household works. It may take 6 weeks to get back to the usual life.
Laparoscopic supracervical hysterectomy (LSH):
It has a recovery period of 6 days to 2 weeks. Walking can be taken, but no heavy exercise is allowed.
Hysterectomy surgery scars
Hysterectomy is an internal treatment. Therefore scars may not always be visible. There can only be internal scars.
Conclusion
Though every hysterectomy is taken as a good path of treating the different conditions for women, open abdominal hysterectomy is taken as the best option for treating the medical condition. It is said as when laparoscopic or vaginal hysterectomy is not good enough to treat the patient.
Thus we can say it depends on the condition of the patient that how to treat hysterectomy. Taking enough rest and follow the precaution and instruction of a doctor will help the patient to get back to work again.
Related article about losing fat around the private area read here.
