Diet taboos after hysteroscopy

①If you have general intravenous anesthesia, you must not eat or drink until you have passed the gas 6 hours after the operation.； ②Within 1 week after surgery, try to avoid large-dose blood-activating foods, severely spicy/cold foods, and foods that can easily cause flatulence. ； ③All alcoholic beverages are prohibited for at least 1 month after surgery. Most of the other so-called statements such as "you can't eat hairy things" and "you can only drink porridge and vegetables" have no clear medical basis and do not need to be followed blindly.

I have been in the gynecology clinic for almost 8 years, and I have seen too many patients who were forced to drink white porridge by their family members after surgery. Even when they boiled an egg, they were told that "the hair will become purulent." It was really dumbfounding. Let me first break it down for you and explain why there are three core taboos, and also explain which ones can be flexibly adjusted.

First of all, let’s talk about the 6-hour fasting requirement after surgery. This is for the vast majority of people who undergo intravenous general anesthesia. After anesthesia, the throat reflexes have not yet recovered. Eating too early can easily lead to coughing and aspiration. In severe cases, there is a real risk of suffocation. Don't believe it, last month I treated a 22-year-old girl. She felt hungry 3 hours after the operation, so she secretly drank the pearl milk tea brought by her boyfriend. After just two sips, her face turned red and she vomited all over the floor. I stayed under observation for two days before I dared to let her go, and she suffered a lot. But if you are having an outpatient hysteroscopy that does not require general anesthesia, but is just a local anesthesia operation, you don’t have to wait 6 hours at all. If you feel no discomfort within 1 hour after the operation, you can drink some warm porridge or rice soup.

Let’s talk about blood-activating foods that you should avoid in the first week after surgery, such as large doses of ginseng, donkey-hide gelatin, longan, and dried brown sugar. Western medicine considers that these foods have blood-activating effects and may increase the amount of bleeding and prolong the bleeding time. However, many colleagues in traditional Chinese medicine believe that if there is only a small amount of brown secretion and uterine contraction pain is obvious after the operation, drinking a small amount of brown sugar ginger water for 1-2 days is fine and can relieve discomfort. My general advice to patients is to compromise: if your post-operative bleeding is about the same as or even more than the first day of menstruation, don’t touch these. ； If the bleeding is very small and the stomach is very cold, it’s okay to drink one or two drinks, so don’t worry too much.

As for spicy, raw and cold food, there’s really no need to cut it across the board. If you grew up in Hunan or Sichuan, and you don't like spicy food every time, it's absolutely fine to eat slightly spicy stir-fries after surgery, as long as it's not so spicy that you'll get stomachache or diarrhea after eating it. ； But if you usually get angry and develop ulcers after eating spicy food, you should endure it for a week after the operation. The same goes for iced drinks. If you drink iced milk tea every day in the summer, it won't be a big problem if you take a few sips to satisfy your cravings for three or four days after the operation. If you usually have a stomachache if you eat something cold, just drink warm drinks.

There is also a type of food that is prone to flatulence, such as milk, sugar-free soy milk, and a large number of sweets. Try to eat as little as possible in the first two days after surgery. On the first day after surgery, a patient's family felt that she needed to take some supplements, so they squeezed two large cups of soy milk and brought it to her. Not long after she finished drinking it, her stomach became bloated and she cried. She came to the emergency room in the middle of the night thinking it was a surgical perforation. After taking a plain abdominal X-ray, it was just flatulence. She used two pieces of Kaiselu to expel the gas, and she was fine.

Finally, let’s talk about the “fat food” question that everyone asks the most. Eggs, beef, seafood, leeks, and chicken can all be eaten. As long as you are not allergic to these foods, it will be better to eat them after surgery - these high-protein foods are the key to repairing the endometrium. Last week, a patient listened to the advice of an elder at home and only drank white porridge and pickles for three days after the operation. When he came for a follow-up examination, he felt dizzy and his hemoglobin dropped by almost 10g. His nutrition could not keep up, and his recovery was slow.

The only thing that is not negotiable is alcohol. Whether it is rice wine, red wine, beer or alcoholic beverages, you must not touch them for at least 1 month after surgery. First, there is a high probability that antibiotics or other anti-inflammatory drugs will be prescribed after surgery. When combined with alcohol, it is easy to cause a disulfiram reaction, which can lead to shock in severe cases. ； Second, alcohol dilates blood vessels, which can easily increase bleeding and slow down recovery. Don’t make fun of your body.

In fact, after all, hysteroscopic surgery is considered a very minimally invasive surgery in gynecology. There are really not so many restrictions on diet. The core principle is "you can eat comfortably, without upset stomach, and without increased bleeding." Don't be bound by the various taboo lists given on the Internet or from relatives and friends. If you are really unsure, it is much more reliable to ask your attending doctor directly than to listen to blind advice from neighbors.