How long did you stay after the op before flying home? And did you bring someone?

#1bkk_bound(Joined Sep 2025 · 12 posts)October 8, 2025, 11:19 am

Booked in for a hernia repair in January. The hospital says most international patients fly out "around a week" after, my travel agent friend says pad it, and the flight prices obviously want me to decide now.

Two questions for those who've done it. How long did you actually stay after the operation, and was it enough? And did you bring someone with you or go alone? My wife could come but it doubles the cost of everything, and part of me thinks I'll just be lying in a hotel room watching films either way.

#2Alan G(Joined Jun 2024 · 34 posts)October 8, 2025, 7:41 pm

Shoulder repair, so a different animal, but: I stayed ten days post-op. The surgeon wanted to see me at day seven before he'd write the fit-to-fly letter, and I was glad of the buffer when that appointment moved by a day.

I went alone and mostly it was fine, but I'll be honest, days one to three were harder than I'd planned for. Nothing dramatic, just that everything takes four times longer with one working arm: dressing, showering, getting to the pharmacy across the road. A hernia repair hits different muscles but bending and lifting will be off the menu, and suitcases exist. If the only cost of your wife coming is money, I'd find the money for at least the first week.

#3petem1970(Joined Aug 2025 · 7 posts)October 10, 2025, 7:55 am

Dental implants so take this with salt, I flew home on day 4. Doable but long-haul with a swollen face and airline food was grim. Whatever your dates end up being, book the aisle seat.

#4Dr Helen WardMedical moderator(Joined Mar 2024 · 82 posts)October 11, 2025, 9:14 am

bkk_bound said:

The hospital says most international patients fly out "around a week" after

Some general context on why that "around a week" needs to come from your surgeon rather than a booking template.

The two things that set the earliest sensible flying date are the risk of blood clots, which is raised after surgery and raised again by long immobile flights, and whatever your specific operation needs checked before you leave, wound healing, swelling, in some cases a scan. Both vary by procedure, by anaesthetic, and by you. Airlines also apply their own fitness-to-fly rules after recent surgery, and travel insurers take a close interest in whether you followed medical advice, so it is worth having the surgeon's clearance in writing before you check in.

The site's guide on when it is safe to fly after surgery sets out the typical windows by procedure type and what the airlines ask for. But the only number that counts for you personally comes from the surgeon who has actually seen your repair, at your follow-up, not from this thread, and I'd gently include my own post in that.

#5bkk_bound(Joined Sep 2025 · 12 posts)February 10, 2026, 2:32 pm

Back home, so closing this out for the next person who searches. Thirteen nights in the end: surgery on day 2, follow-up on day 9, cleared to fly at that appointment, flew day 13 with the letter in my hand luggage.

And my wife came for the first week. Alan was right and I was wrong, it wasn't about drama, it was about the hundred small things (pharmacy, water bottles, reaching the bag on the luggage rack) that would each have been a production on my own. Watched a lot of films anyway.