episiotomy healing question

[nightowlmostly]

Hi, I gave birth to my first DC 4 days ago. I had an episiotomy but no forceps or anything. When the community midwife looked at it 2 days ago to see if it looked ok she was horrified at the bruising, she thinks they may have cut a blood vessel and that's what caused the really black bruise down one side.

I thought the pain I was having was the bruising, but as it's getting better the pain is getting a lot worse, I think the episiotomy itself is the problem. It's getting excruciatingly painful, I can barely walk and can't imagine even going to the fridge or doing things like changing the baby or anything. Luckily DH is here and doing it all, and I have an appt at the GP in a bit. Hopefully it's not infected, I really need some painkillers for it, but I'm trying to breastfeed so not sure what I can take.

I'm sure I'll get help from the GP, but in the meantime has anyone got any advice on whether this sounds normal? It's just one bit of it that hurts so much, most of it feels ok, that's why I don't feel it's right. It's getting worse not better!

Thanks

I bought it in Turkey, without prescription.

They don't have it in France but you should be able to find it elsewhere in Europe.

I am there now, and would be happy to buy some Contractubex and post it to you if you care to give me an address.

i was in pain for about two days really badly ..sat in saltwater 5 times a day to heal my stitches...your pains sound very extreme

Hi, I just wanted to come back as I'm still having a couple of issues 3 weeks on! The antibiotics worked, as well as I can ascertain. The pain went anyway, and I stopped having to take those painkillers. It all looks ok, like it's healing well now.

The thing is, I was feeling well enough the other day to go for a walk, and went out for an hour. Then later the same day went to a shopping centre, so another couple of hours walking around. I felt ok at the time, but later on in the evening I started to feel a bit of pain again in the site. So I figured I'd overdone it, and would rest the next day, which I did. Unfortunately every day since even though I've not done any exercise at all, I've been getting pain there again. It's 4 days since.

Is it possible this is just the healing process at work? I don't want to go running back to the doctors again, I have my 8 week check in a fortnight, so I'll get it looked at then unless it gets a lot worse.

I guess what I'm asking is, can I expect to be feeling frequent pain there still, 6 weeks later? It's not crippling or anything, but it's not nothing either!

Thanks if you can help.

I'm 7 weeks in from mine & still get pain when walking. Not always but sometimes it really hurts & to have to stop in the middle of the street!

I think it's scar tissue combined with may be being a but drier down there from breastfeeding. It can ache at the end of the day too. Guess it will take a while to go...

owl, don't underestimate the time that it will take for your scar to knit. I had a big episiotomy after DS and although it looked like it was healing fine (and indeed it was) it was tender and swollen for quite some weeks. I found the best thing to do was keep it mobile - walking (GENTLY!) and rubbing it with olive oil - and trying not to sit on it too much. I've since been told that scars can heal tight and rigid if the tissues are not kept moving (I had a spinal op last year and was told that if I let the scar heal "static", I'd end up with as many problems as before!)

I'd say that I totally stopped noticing any problems after around 3 months. And now, 2.5 years on, you'd never know anything had happened down there. (DC2 on way in next month!)

Ok, thanks! I guess it'll take a wee while yet. It's just getting really frustrating, I want to start exercising properly again to get back into shape and don't feel that I can yet really. I'm not bfing, so I'm putting weight on now, after being quite lucky in that respect while pg, which is annoying as well!