Walking is one of the best exercises to help you recover fast and maintain some fitness after your hysterectomy. Today I’m guiding you through a safe walking program after hysterectomy. We’re going to look at a number of things today. We’re going to be looking at how to reduce your pain when you’re walking. Then, I’m going to guide you through a progressive walking program for weeks 1-6 after your surgery, and then what to do thereafter.
And then, finally, we’re going to go through some safety precautions to take when you’re walking. Now perhaps you’re wondering why you just can’t stay in bed after hysterectomy? We know that for many women the best way to recover and reduce the risk of possible side effects is to move after surgery.
And this usually means walking provided that you’ve been given the all clear by your doctor. Now walking after a hysterectomy has some key benefits.
These include avoiding blood clots in the deep veins of your calves. Now, this risk is increased if you have an abdominal hysterectomy. It’s really important that you’re moving regularly. And part of that way of moving and using those muscles to stop the blood coagulating and forming a clot is by walking. Walking also encourages bowel movement.
So when you’re up and around your bowel is stimulated to move.
And we know that moving your bowels can be challenging after a hysterectomy, so it’s really important to get up and move around to encourage your bowel movement. Walking also maintains strength, and fitness, and also to balance which we take a little bit for granted, don’t we? Finally getting up and walking can help relieve problems like neck pain and back pain that you get from resting for a long time in bed. Plus it just makes you feel a whole lot better to get up and move.
You’ll find that once you get back into bed. You’ll be really proud of yourself and feeling good that you actually got up and moved around.
So let’s now go through your 6-week program for what to do with your walking after your surgery. So I’ve listed these general guidelines in the description below if you’d like to refer back to them too. Remember that this guide is intended as general information and its women who have approval from their doctor to walk after surgery, so it’s not a substitute for medical advice or guidelines that you may have received in hospital.
So let’s start with walking weeks 1 to 2 after surgery. You’ll find that most women start to walk short distances in the hospital room or in the hospital ward on the day after their surgery. And this usually involves a couple of like 4-5 minute walks throughout the course of the day.
Maybe even getting up, and going to the toilet, and going back to bed. Now you continue this in hospital walking when you go home this same routine.
And you might increase your duration of your walks to up to 10 minutes at a time by the end of week two. And you might even find that you can do some walks outdoors by the end week 2 as well. Now during weeks 2-4 four, continue with your short walks on flat surfaces and you can do these outdoors if you like too. Try to increase the time you spend walking on average by about 5 minutes per week, so that during week 3 you might be able to walk continuously for 15 minutes. Remember you were walking 10 minutes a week 2, so 15 minutes walk 3 – week 3, and then 20 minutes if you can by the end of week 4.
So you’re progressively increasing just by time not by distance or by speed. Now during weeks 4-6 after surgery, you can continue your daily walking and aim to increase your walking time so that you can complete 30 minutes of continuous walking by the end of week 6 after your surgery if you can. Now if you can’t manage this long walk, then you can do 3 lots of 10-minute walks. And that’ll be just as effective in helping you maintain your fitness and also reducing the risk some of the post-operative risks. Finally, from week 7 onwards most women have their post-operative check with their specialist around 6 weeks.
And he or she will usually give you approval to go back to your regular exercise. And if that happens, then you can usually start to increase the speed you walk and also to the distance you walk. But making sure that you’re monitoring your walking throughout and you’re adjusting as you progress during this 6 week time frame. If you find that you’ve done too much, then back it up. If you feel that you’re feeling really tired, then don’t walk.
Now before you start walking, here’s some tips for reducing pain when you walk. The first one is to wear some quality support briefs. And you can see the ones that I’ve got pictured here. Now, these briefs are large.
You can see they cover the abdomen. They’ve got a thin waistband, so they’re not going to cut into the waist. And also to you because they’ve got some panel support at the front it’s not lace. So make sure that the briefs that you choose are good quality, elastic, and also to reasonably firm around your tummy.
You might find that you need to go a size larger than what you normally do if your tummy is a bit swollen after your surgery.
The second tip I’ve got for reducing pain is to make sure that you time you’re walking with your pain relief. Now you’ll usually find that taking your pain relief regularly as you’re supposed to say every 4 hours or every 6 hours during the course of the day helps you maintain your pain levels. But also to it’s important to have your medication at least 20- 25 minutes before you go for your walk so that you know that it’s really kicked in for when you’re walking. The third thing you can do is to think about walking outdoors as opposed to on a treadmill.
You’ll find that the repetitive walking on a treadmill actually increases impact through the abdomen.
So you’re much better off walking outdoors if you can. Where you have changes in speed, and the gradient of the of the surface of the ground, and the what the ground consists of, so that you’re actually um finding that you’ve got variation with what you’re walking on rather than walking on a same hard surface which can cause tummy uh discomfort. Make sure that you wear well-cushioned and fitted shoes when you’re outside walking rather than thongs or slip-on shoes which can be a little bit more dangerous to walk on. And finally, short frequent walks can be just as effective as a longer walk. So if you find you’re not tolerating walking for longer periods of time in terms of comfort, just go to a shorter walk and do what you can manage.
Again, monitoring what you’re doing? How much you’re walking? And adjusting as you feel comfortable. Now it’s really important to remember that complete healing takes 3 months. So during the 3 months after your surgery try to be particularly careful in monitoring how you’re feeling when you’re walking.
Because during this time your internal wound is still healing and it’s still at risk of injury. So just take your time even though you might feel good during that 3 months post-op. Now let’s go through some safety precautions for walking. The first one obviously the most important is to have your doctor’s approval to walk. Second one is to sit on the side of the bed before you actually get up and start walking.
So you might find that if you’ve been resting in bed and you get up, suddenly your blood pressure decreases.
So to reduce that effect when you’re walking in, to reduce the lightheadedness, and dizziness that you might feel, take your time sit on the side of the bed for even up to a minute. Just so that your head levels out, your blood pressure levels out before you actually get up and start to walk. Now if you’re feeling that you’re a little bit unbalanced uh or if you’re on opiate medication.
You might like to walk with a partner.
Walk with someone who can help you steady or particularly if you’re walking up and downstairs have someone with you so that you’re safer when you walk. Another thing I like to do with patients is to have a chair ready particularly during the early days of starting to walk. So if you have a chair ready for when you get out of bed, if you need to sit down suddenly, then it’s there rather than trying to look down- look for somewhere to sit. When you’re walking along the hallway and you haven’t got anywhere to sit.
So if you need to sit suddenly, you’ve got a chair or somewhere to rest.
Finally, listen to your body and your symptoms, so they aren’t going to tell you how you’re tolerating your walking. So if you’re feeling that you’ve done too much or you’re feeling uncomfortable during the walk. Stop, go back to bed, and just do a little bit less next time when you’re recovered. So in summary you can see that there’s numerous benefits from walking after surgery. And that’ll really improve your recovery speed and also to reduce your risk of post-operative side effects.
Try to use a time-based approach to progress your walking rather than speed or distance. So just monitor how long you’re walking for that’s the really important way to progress your walking. And finally, try and use the tips I’ve suggested today for managing your pain and keeping walking comfortable like walking when you’ve got your pain relief on board.
And also to using some firm um well-supported garments underneath to actually support you when you’re walking. So I really hope this information helps you recover fast from your hysterectomy surgery.