Recovery: Caring for Yourself at Home

General Instructions

Activity

• Recovery time varies. Patients experience pain and weakness after the Whipple procedure.
• Eating and finding the right foods will be difficult for the first few weeks. You may also experience nausea and constipation. Because of these difficulties, you will probably be unable to resume work and normal activities within the first month of recovery. After the first month, you will slowly begin to feel normal
• You will be encouraged to return to normal activities, such as showering, driving, walking up stairs, light lifting and work, as soon as you feel comfortable.
• No heavy lifting or straining for six to eight weeks.
• If you are taking narcotic medications for pain, you should not drive.

Diet

• Your doctor will discuss what kind of diet you can resume when you are home. This will depend on many factors of your recovery and surgery.

Possible Risks

• Delayed stomach emptying: Patients with this complication may need to be fed using alternative methods (such as through a tube directly into their intestines) until their stomach heals.
• Abscess: A walled-off area of infection.
• Fistula: An opening that develops inside the digestive system that allows digestive juices to get into your abdomen.  If you develop a fistula,   you will have a wound drain put in and drugs to control the inflammation until the fistula dries up and heals on its own.   

Call Your Doctor If:

• Your temperature is above 101°F or you have shaking chills
• You have unusual pain in your belly or kidney area (mid back) that is not helped by pain medication
• Your incision becomes red, swollen, painful, feels hot to touch, has pus or foul smelling drainage from it
• New onset of swelling in your legs
• You suddenly have trouble breathing or start having chest pain. You could have a blood clot in your lung or an allergy to one of your medicines.

Seek Help Immediately If:

• You develop severe pain in your abdomen or chest.
• You have a change in your level of consciousness, or loss of vision or strength

Medicine to Take at Home

• Prescription medications may include Lortab (Hydrocodone/APAP) for pain
• Maximum combined total of acetaminophen (Tylenol) and/or hydrocodone/acetaminophen (Lortab) is 8 tablets per day
• Take only medicine ordered or approved by your doctor