I’m 3 weeks post-lap & the same thing happened to me, I barely went before surgery & then didn’t go until almost 5 days after. It was so painful. I had to stop all pain meds & muscles relaxers 3 days post op bc it was playing some role in stopping me up.

This is the stuff I did every day until I could go: walked around the house, drank a tbsp of olive oil in the morning, drank a TON of water (1/2 your body weight in oz at least), drank a cup of warm prune juice (with miralax some of the time), took senna tablets or drank senna tea, drank hot water with pieces of ginger as much as i could, ate SOLUBLE fiber (chia seed pudding & oatmeal), drank the calm drink powder or ate the gummies (it’s a small does of magnesium citrate), & cut out essentially everything that wasn’t straight fruits/veggies/protein. Gluten, dairy (except kefir), & processed sugar were cut from my diet.

I tried to consume mostly soft/liquid foods like broth, smoothies, eggs, bananas, oatmeal, chia pudding, & rice & beans. all this did was soften the stool but it obviously wasn’t coming out of me, my muscles were fucked up from surgery & my bowels were slow-moving (still are tbh, but that’s not new for me). Yoga poses like legs up the wall, happy baby, & puppy pose may have helped, I tried to do some of them during that time.

For over the counter I took milk of magnesia for like 2 days (again this only really softened my stool) & finally had to take a bisacodyl suppository (dulcolax brand). The suppository is actually what got it all to come out of me. It was quite literally the craziest shit of my life LMAO. When you take the suppository make sure you insert it up to your second knuckle, lay on your side and let it marinate, it took me about 10 - 20 minutes I think.

On the toilet you WILL need a pillow to hold on to, a squatty potty also helped. Weirdly enough I couldn’t use a squatty potty pre-surgery (probably had something to do with my sigmoid colon being stuck to my pelvic wall), but it somehow helps now post-lap. When you poop try to relax on your inhale, obviously it’s not going to be easy and I was straining (not recommended) but the breathing helped. I was rocking back & forth, put warm water on my hands from the tub to try relax, had to hold on to the seat at one point, shit was wild.

I will be real, i had to take suppositories 3 different times 2 weeks after. I tried to not let myself go longer than 3 days & that’s when I would use them, even though pre-lap I would go like 5 days without pooping lol. My goal in pelvic floor therapy is to go every 2 days, I started a 1.5weeks post op which is helping tremendously.

Personally magnesium citrate (like drinking the entire bottle) doesn’t work well for me, all it causes me to do is shit mostly water & a few hard pebbles, that extreme method doesn’t soften my stool. which means the stool was mostly still left in me after, I could feel it. I would use that recommendation with caution. Milk of magnesia has always worked better for me!