I have Dysautonomia which has shown its face in two ways in my adulthood: each and every period resulted in EXTREME achiness, fatigue and fever...and exercise of any kind produced extreme fatigue, high heartrate, insomnia, feeling hot.

Fast forward to now: I had surgery ten days ago. It was outpatient. Most folks that have this seems to be doing fairly well after two weeks. But not me. I have a lot of achiness daily, and waves of fatigue.

For example, this morning, after waking up with slight fatigue as I do often, I had breakfast, and an hour later after doing NOTHING, I have serious sleepiness and achiness. Napped two hours. Got up, and a few hours later after doing nothing, the same serious sleepiness and achiness. Napped again for a few hours. Got up, ate dinner prepared by someone else...and 30 minutes later, sleepiness. I still feel slightly achy.

Even though others tell me that this is all "normal" after having this kind of surgery, I have doubts. This does NOT feel "normal".

What do you think??

i had a minor out paitent surgery, and it took me weeks to get over it. i couldnt even stand up for almost a week, had to have help just to eat and get to the bathroom, i also had to put a chair in the shower because i couldnt stand up. slowly i gained my strenght back. take it slow and just let it take its course, over doing it will just prolong the symptoms.

It could be the anesethia. It cna really do a number on the Autonomic nervous system and may just take you some time to build back up. Good luck.

I am scheduled for surgery next Friday, August 1st. In the last few years I have had 7 surgeries/procedures requiring anesthesia, some major.

I actually recovered okay from these. I do think that having so many surgeries so close together (believe me, it wasn't my choice ) may be one of the reasons I'm not making as much progess with my dys. as I would like. As far as recovery went though, I did okay. What I have found is that NO surgery is ever as easy as the Drs. like us to think it is. There may be some people who are textbook and are out plowing the fields in a few days but the average person takes a bit longer anyway. For me, I just rested more than usual and really took care of myself. I think part of the problem can be that lying around makes my bp drop lower so I feel more lightheaded and fatigued. Give yourself as much time as you need. Even without having dysautonomia, people recover from surgery at different rates. Gradually start moving around again though because that helps get your blood flowing and increase your bp. Hope you are feeling better very soon.

This hasn't been a great month for me from a dys. perspective so I'm a bit more concerned about this surgery but it has to be done. The anesthesiologists at my surgicenter are wonderful and watch me like a hawk and load me up with extra fluids and sodium which helps me alot to get through the first couple of days. So, we'll see what happens this time.......wish me luck!

Thanks everyone for your great posts.

Krissie, you are SOOO correct that overdoing it sets you back. I had the surgery on Thursday. Saturday, I decided to accompany my husband on some errands since the house was hot....and doing that excursion brought me home with EXTREME fatigue for days! The following Thursday, I was feeling so much better, so went out again. Bam. I was down all over again. Frustrating.

I don't know your hx but your description sounds a awful lot like Chronic Fatigue syndrome, do you have it as a dx? It can really be exacerbated by any kind of stress including surgery and it often is accompanied by dysautonomia.

The neurologist I see told me that prolonged recovery from surgery is quite typical of patients with dysautonomia.

Any surgery -- even 'sedation' knocks me around. I was supposed to have an ultrasound endoscopy with sedation a couple of weeks ago but chickened out, I'm afraid to say. I just could not face feeling worse than I do at the moment. It will have to wait till I'm feeling a bit stronger.

At least the diagnosis of POTS explained why after surgery I need days of recovering -- just getting from bed to bathroom is a big effort -- when other patients are up and about withing hours or the next day.

I always leave hospital having to lean on someone.