re: How Long Should one be off work for an appendectomy?

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sry darth ....glad you made it !!!!

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It's all good. I'm MUCH better now.

I actually posted that to mess with a select few who know who they are.

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I had a laparoscopic cholecystectomy and I was back at work in two days.

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I had the same surgery on a Thursday, took off Friday and was back to work on Monday. I think I probably should have taken off a few more days. I was walking pretty slow and it was not easy getting up from my chair and sitting back down. It's not a good idea to rush recovery from surgery. A good week is good for most things laparoscopic and outpatient I would think.

obligatory tree fiddy,

Bout 20 minutes.

If an employee was in bad enough shape to willingly ask someone to cut several holes in them and yank A frickING ORGAN out through one of those holes, then pay that person thousands of dollars for the experience, it's safe to say that they might need more than two days out of the office, Mr. Cratchit.

Of course, this is the OT, so I had my gallbladder removed laparoscopically in the morning and went to the bar with my friends that night.

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Within 12 hours of surgery you may get up and move around. You can usually return to normal activities in two to three weeks. If surgery is done with a laparoscope (a thin telescope-like instrument for viewing inside the abdomen), the incision is smaller and recovery is faster.

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What WedMD has to say about appendectomies

I was just curious guys.......because I've never had an appendectomy..........

This is the worst possible time he could be off work though. I was just wondering what kind of time I'm looking at.

An appendix can rupture, and still be removed through laparoscopic surgery. The doctor will frequently insert a drain that has to be removed after several days.

Obviously, it is nearly impossible to work while the drain is still inserted.

Many people seem to be comparing an appendectomy to other abdominal surgeries- hernia and gallbladder surgery among them. These can all be quite different from each other for a number of reasons. Surgeons typically don't like holding people out of work longer than they need- you should probably defer to him/her. If the doctor is willing to write a note to ask you to excuse him, that doctor probably thinks the patient would benefit from it. No, not all doctors are infallibly wonderful and altruistic people. He could be a dirtbag. But he can probably be trusted.


Now about the differences between the surgeries: appendix surgery almost always takes place in an urgency/emergency situation. Patients who get them taken out are often very sick when they show up to get worked on. This can delay healing. This can also happen with gallbladders, but the vast majority of them come out in a controlled setting when the patient is well. The same is true of hernia surgery. Odds are this was an emergency surgery, so the real severity of his illness as well as all other illnesses he may have contribute to his healing time.

One more plug for the doctors: surgeons especially like sending their patients back to work because people living their daily lives heal faster than people lying in bed all day. So if he's asking for a bit longer than you'd think, by all means ask. But odds are the physician doesn't want the guy out of work, and there's a real chance that he does take longer than someone who had a hernia repair or gallbladder surgery.

No more than a week.