Diving after an appendectomy.

[Ryan Nelson]

I recently had a laproscopic appendectomy. How long does it usually take to start diving again. I am 6ft male , 160 lbs. Athletic, with no prior medical history.

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[TSandM]

It is usually recommended that you wait several weeks for the incisions in the abdominal wall to heal, to reduce the chance of hernia. This isn't a big deal with the trochar sites, but the umbilical incision doesn't have a lot of cross-bracing and is made through relatively avascular tissue, so it doesn't heal quickly and needs to be strong.

Whether your particular surgeon recommends four or six weeks will depend on what he thought of the closure and your general state of health and body habitus. If you ask him, make sure he understands the weights you will be lifting.

If you can avoid lifting any of the gear (i.e. gear up and doff gear in the water), I would think just a couple of weeks would be sufficient before you can paddle around on scuba.

 

[clownfishsydney]

My wife had the same operation on 2 June last year. This was less than eight weeks before we were due to leave on a trip to the UK to dive the German WWI wrecks at Scapa Flow. As you could imagine, she was keen to do some dives before we left, especially considering she had bought a new drysuit and had not had a chance to use it (and get used to how different it was to her old one, including weighting). She dived again almost exactly 6 weeks later, and this was when she was given the clearance by doctor. For the next few weeks I made sure that she did not lift any tanks etc and when she did dive off the boat, she put her gear on at the edge of the ladder and took it off before exiting the water.

Despite being sore, it all worked well.