Laproscopic vs. traditional surgery?

I dont believe there is any data supporting your local doc's opinion- lapro is certainly riskier in the hands of a surgeon inexperienced in lapr because it is more complex, but in the hands of an experienced, expert lapro surgeon I believe there is no difference in outcome, except that recovery is much faster and less painful for lapro and the chances of life long lasting adhesions vastly less than with open surgery, so unless the are phsyiological reasons not to get lapro I would go to a top lapro surgeon hands down.

Hi Gottago! My situation is a little different than most people posting; however, my stoma placement was an open traditional surgery. It was an emergency surgery due to a perforated bowel from a LAPRO for endometriosis. My surgeon specializes in LAPRO surgery but because of how sick and close to dying I was, he performed an open. I for one, and this is only my opinion, will never have a LAPRO surgery again, I will refuse, the surgeon that did my LAPRO has done thousands, excellent surgeon and specializes in them.
open surgeries take longer to heal, they hurt more and there is a Janice of then coming open, as mine did with the placement. With the takedown we did not do LAPRO he just cut around the stoma and put it back in.

Remember everyone is different and we all have different experiences. Research your surgeon more and of you do want LAPRO look for a doctor who specializes in it. But word from the wise, read all the fine print and risks!!

I want to add that the loss of feeling at the incision site does come back with time. It is fairly normal, because nerves get severed and there is no way around that. But feeling does return, question of some months.
I am very pro lapro. It greatly reduces the level of general body trauma caused by surgery, and greatly reduces the healing time.
My surgeon specializes in lapro and he told me that there are some cases that start as lapro but if the surgeon sees that the operation will be difficult doing it that way, then they open you up. It is always a chance but I think that happens very infrequently.
I think in general, there are stronger arguments to have lapro. I'll also say that when I checked myself out right after the collectomy, I was astonished that the surgeon could have done what he did with such a tiny incision, just above the pubic hair, only six centimeters across. It was completely healed before I was released and one year later was nearl invisible, looks like a little tan-colored thread. The lapro key-holes have also faded away to nearly nothing. Considering the massive amount of work done to remove the colon and create the jpouch, it is amazing how little they really have to cut. After years of UC and 12 months of living with an ostomy bag, it was really helpful emotionally to have a relatively pretty abdomen again.

I've had both open and lapro several times and will opt for lapro every time. Emergency open, when my lap doc was out of town, gave me a huge, wide scar and a second belly button. It hurt far more and took twice as long to heal than any of the lapros.

Both types of surgery have given me severed nerves and numbness to one side or another or below and sometimes above the scars. I'm glad of that because it reduces pain. The lapro stabs, one a pretty long one for a hysterectomy in addition to the takedown just 3 weeks ago, gave me burning nerve pain every time I move. It's getting less, but pain meds do nothing for it. Relaxing the muscles is the only way to lessen it. It's from nerve damage in the abdominal wall.

The worst pain for me has been the staples. I try to get the docs to close with sutures, but they refuse. My older surgeries, lap and open, were all sutured and hurt way less and healed faster and better - no scars at all!

Some people get adhesions and some don't. I had some before, but my latest surgeons, for the combined takedown and hysto, said I had none this time.

From what I've read, lapro is important because it reduces or minimizes adhesions.

I can see why a surgeon would want to do open though, easier to see and feel stuff.

I had my surgery with one of the top colorectal surgeons in the Denver area and he said he wanted to do my permanent ileostomy surgery open. Unfortunately, I can't remember the reasons he gave because having it done lapro wasn't a big priority for me so I never took any notes about that part of the appointment. What was important to me was that I had a highly skilled surgeon and one that I could trust and liked working with (I am one who really values great bedside manner). I feel that having a good relationship with a surgeon for such a major operation is important as sometimes you will have to work with this individual multiple times over the course of surgery and recovery... or for additional surgeries in the future. I had some incision complications in the first few months after surgery due to poor healing from being on prednisone, low protein levels from being malnourished due to UC and a rare reaction to the sutures used in my abdominal wall. I had to get a couple more minor operations to fix these issues. Having a surgeon who was compassionate and who I could call when I was worried about something or who would squeeze me in for a last-minute appointment made a huge difference during those really anxious times. The level of patient care I experienced was exceptional and something I will always strive to find again when choosing future doctors.

My opinion-- choose a surgeon who is highly skilled and that you feel you can trust. That will be more important than the lapro or open debate. Each surgeon has their own reasons for preferring one surgery type over the other and as long as they are highly skilled, you will be in good hands.

As far as my experiences with open surgery, I am a little over two years out and have not had issues with adhesions (knock on wood). My surgeon did use an adhesion barrier (Sepra-film). There was a great deal of post-surgery pain, but it was well-controlled with pain meds. I was back to working full-time at 8 weeks. My scar goes from my pubic bone to an inch above my belly button. My surgery took a little over 3.5 hours.