Patient Education Colorectal Cancer: Your Care and Recovery | Page 36

Medication
• Take your regular medications, unless your surgeon or medical doctor has
made a change.
• Pain medication
— Your surgeon will order pain medication to use at home.
— For the first 3 to 4 days, you may want to take your pain medication
around the clock.
— After 3 to 4 days, start taking it only as you need it. It takes about 30
minutes for the medication to start working, so don’t let your pain get
too severe before taking it.
— As your pain lessens, you can take over-the-counter pain medicines
such as acetaminophen (Tylenol®) or ibuprofen (Advil®) instead of
your prescription medicine.
— See “Other Ways to Manage Pain” on page 29.

Bowel Habits
• You may have different bowel habits after your surgery. Loose stools are
common for the first 1 to 2 weeks after surgery.
• Call your surgeon if you have watery diarrhea that lasts for 3 days. This
may be a sign of a bowel infection.
• Constipation
— Prescription pain medication can cause constipation. Your doctor may
order a stool softener to prevent this. You should be back to your
normal bowel routine in about 2 weeks.
— If the stool softener doesn’t work, you can take milk of magnesia. If
you still are not getting relief, call your surgeon.

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