Painful stitches.

[Cassie96]

I had a second degree tear but a quite bad one and had stitches, im also really bruised and swollen down there (sorry, tmi) and I'm in so much pain, I can't sleep, I can't walk or sit, I can't wee without crying, I haven't had a bowel movement yet, it's so painful and I don't know how to ease it.
I've had baths, taken painkillers, used cold pads, but it doesn't work.
Has anybody got any advice on how to take the pain off and ease the bruising/swelling?

 

[No1showgirl]

x

 

[Cassie96]

A few drop of tea tree oil in a bath twice a day would be beneficial!

Make sure you put the oil drops in an egg cup full of milk and then add to the bath water - if you dont add it to milk the oil doesnt disperse in the water properly and just sits on the top of the bath water doing no good...

You should probably go to the docs to get stronger pain relief aswell and ask for some "lactulose" on prescription to make your poos soft.

Rest assured it gets better!!

Can I just say thank you for replying, and that I'll defiantly try it with the milk, hopefully that works, and yeah I'm going to have to as I still haven't had a bowel movement yet. Thanks for the advice x

 

[krissie1234uk]

From someone who thought they were never going to recover from birth, I can honestly guarantee that you will. I took painkillers religiously for the first 2 weeks (I got cocodamol from the doctor as the other stuff didn't cut it, despite the fact that it worked fine with my first C-section birth1), I rested as much as possible and let my OH do as much as he could, I had a prescription for lactulose which made me feel better about going for bowel movements and I made use of the midwives for advice and support. I also got a prescription for instillagel (its a numbing gel which they use when they are inserting catheters and other medical things) which I put on my maternity pads and put onto my stitches. It has lidocaine in it and also an antiseptic. It helped slightly when I was really sore.
No one tells us about this part and it can be a shock, but it will end. By 3 weeks I felt more normal, but by the middle of the second week I was in much less pain and I could sit down on a pile of cushions.