A question for any mothers out there...

I would like to know how the pain of child birth is compared to the pains from ulcerative colitis ?

Post Edited (Anthonyv) : 7/10/2013 7:04:37 AM (GMT-6)

Well, how about comparing labor without meds to post-op pain from a 5 hour resection?

My resection wins hands down. Labor wasn't a picnic though (I had to experience late labor pains for over 30 minutes, because my epidural had worn off and the anethesiologist was in a procedure, yes that was back in 1987 before they invented automated pain pumps). I thought labor would be the most painful thing I've ever have to endure in my life. The pain was so bad I would forget to breathe, I didn't even want to move a muscle until nurses told me to move!

All of this said, last winter I developed my first ever dental abscess. Now my God, I thought I had experienced the worst pain with my resection (had a bunch of incisional areas: ostomy, 6 inch main incision, GB removal incision, 2 hip grenades, etc.). Until that tooth acted up, the pain from one tooth nearly did me in.

Odd how pain can be like that, when you least expect it.

Also, I had grand ideas on how to make my ostomy takedown post-op pain as minimal as possible. I walked, and walked, and walked. So many, many times during my day. I did the hourly breathing exercises without being told to do so. I emptied probably 3 pitchers of iced water daily. However, the first time in my room as I tried to fluff my pillows, my old pain friend was back and it took me by complete surprise. For a 1 hour procedure, to close up the ostomy site? The nurses all chuckled and lifted my gown, showing me my mounded up incisional site - saying - see here, you DID have surgery! You will have pain.

But my takedown pain was nothing like my first colon resection surgery. THAT surgery was the surgery from pure he**.

Well, the main thing is that everyone experiences pain differently. I know a lot of women who've had c-sections, and I'd say that I experienced less pain during recovery than most of them. I was off Rx pain meds by four days after and off regular Tylenol less than a week after. I actually think I was still in more pain by four or five days after birth with my vaginal delivery (and I only had a very, very small tear) than I was with my c-section. Other women who've had both might say the c-section recovery was more painful.

And to make myself look like less of a jerk, I would like to point out that until you edited your original post, it did say something to the effect of "perhaps this is pointless."

Well, to be honest, questions like this annoy me. For some people, UC isn't very painful. For some people, childbirth isn't very painful. For some people, a hang nail is really painful. It's all relative, really.

So my guess is that some of the women who have UC and kids will say childbirth was more painful while others will say that UC is more painful.

I don't have any pain with UC. I did have a lot of pain when I gave birth.

you know what lol i would take childbirth any day to what comes with a flaire up. lol when i was in labor lol i was baking cookies ha ha ha ha. if im flaring lol i dont bake cookies.

I sometimes do Lamaze because of my UC. I don't have hospital grade pain medication for my UC. UC pain only lasts a little while, but I was in labor for 19 hours. I had an awesome son at the end of that, which is much nicer than what I get from UC :)

Tornado- ditto :)

Well, ive had natural labour without an epidural, and i also had really bad cramps with my UC flareup post partum.
So let me tell you, UC cramps for me were almost the same as birth cramps, to the point that first i thought i had a problem with my uterus! Buutttt, atleast at the end of childbirth you have a beautiful baby! But with UC it's just pointless suffering...

Pain with a purpose is much better then pain without. But it still hurts like a mfer. As a midwife I specialized in hypnotherapy to process sexual, past birth trauma and pain relief. I thought for sure after having way more clients have virtually pain free births I would too. Joke was on me.