I just had mine 4 weeks ago. Per the doctor I am one of the lucky ones, I can still burp. The first 28 hours are the worst. I went in to the hospital at 6a.m. and by midnight the worst has hit. They will keep you doped up. When you start feeling the pain, call the nurse. The shots they give you for pain will last 3-4 hours until the peak pain hits. The you will want a shot after 2 hrs. The pain is more from the gas they use to blow you up. Call the nurse if your stomach gets upset and if you call a nurse and it takes more the 5 minutes for her to respond, call again. My hospital even offered my husband a cot so he could stay in my room all the time I was in the hospital. I sent him home at 7pm, he was keeping me awake with his snoring. The will send you home with Percocet. After the first few days you will start taking less and less of them until you are taking only 1/2 pills. Make sure the send you home with medication to keep your stomach settled. Have a blender handy so you can eat, proteen drinks and lots of soft food. Get a pestal for grinding you pills up, too. The doctor will tell you that you can return to work in two weeks. Don't let them send you back until you are ready. I work 30 miles from home and it took 3 weeks for me to be able to drive that far by myself. I could only drive 10 miles after 2 weeks. I'm heading back to work monday after 4 weeks off. Follow the doctor's diet, you may have to go 2 weeks like I did with blended food. Write down everything you eat. If you get gas or indigestion, stop eating what ever it was you ate and try it again in 6 months. You will feel a lot better if you stay on a bland diet for a while and slowly add the spices back into your diet. Garlic, tomatoes, peppers and heavy spices are my indigestion foods, I have to slowly increase them back into my diet. Meats are also hard on me. No matter how fine I chew them up, I still get disconfort from eating them. I also have problems with ice cream and any iced or refrigerated drinks. I am realy glad that I have my procedure. After 7 months of 100% disability, It is nice to be able to move again. You will find that the Doctors like to give everyone the worst case senerio, that way you were warned about all the side effect before you made you choice. Keep positive and try not to worry, if you're married you mate will be more worried about you afterwords that you will be. Try to have someone with you for the first 3-4 days, enjoy being pampered, it wont last long. You will trying to push yourself after the 2nd week, but watch it. It is major surgery to fix the damage we do to ourselves. I started light dusting the 3 week and have progressed up to using the vacumm this last week.