Hi capricorn1913,
My son had his surgery when he was just 4 months old, he is coming to 6 months next week. Surgery wise, he recovered well physically and his wound dried up pretty fast. He was showing no signs of pain 3 days post op and so we stopped him on all the painkillers and only gave him antibiotics.
You're right, I read up many articles and most of them told me that we could expect to see some improvements only 3-6 months after surgery. But my consultant insisted that a series of US needed to be done, it was like going back to the hospital every two weeks for the scan and facing disappointment every single time. First 5 weeks of the US, he probably wanted to make sure that the stent was in place and didn't migrate. But now the stent has been removed(on 14 Oct, 2016), his next scan is on the 27th of Oct, by then it would be about 2 months after his surgery, so doctor is hoping that he would be able to see some improvements this time.
As per your concern about the worsening of the dilation, I did ask the doctor(before stent removal), he told me that the stent itself could be another cause of obstruction as the ureter itself is so narrow, plus putting in the stent would mean taking up a portion of the little opening and leaving even little of the passage for the urine to flow out. But when I read up online, all the articles told me that stent helps to drain the urine and not block the passage way so that left me very upset. On the day of stent removal, I managed to ask his assistant on what doctor meant by stent itself being another reason of obstruction and she explained that the two openings of the stent doesn't have valves so sometimes the urine can flow back up to the kidney instead of flowing down to the bladder and out from the urethra meaning that sometimes the pressure in the bladder could be higher and so it will force the urine up back to the kidney. This was what I understood. There's so many explanation from them, sometimes it makes me doubt them. I'm just keeping all my fingers and toes crossed that their assurance is based on facts and we will see improvements on his scan results soon.
I totally do understand how you feel. When our consultant told us that surgery would be needed, my mind went totally blank and I couldn't think or react at all. I didn't even get time like you to read up or ask fellow mummies whose lo had similar conditions and everything happened so fast. Surgery was performed within a week after our consultant advised for it since our priority was to protect his kidney function which is perfect now. Anyways I also read that normally in most cases hydronephrosis resolves itself on the first 18 months of life, so if your lo's dilation has been consistent and not increasing, you might want to consider to watch out and wait for a bit but also doing US on a regular basis to make sure it doesn't worsen. Who knows it might just resolve on its own one fine day?
Best wishes!