How many days did you arrive before the operation itself, and did jet lag make a mess of it?

#1petem1970(Joined Aug 2025 · 16 posts)July 2, 2026, 6:44 am

Going back in September for the second half of my dental work, and this time there is a fair bit more to it, so I am planning the trip properly instead of booking the cheapest flight and hoping.

Last time I landed at half past eleven at night and was in the chair at nine the following morning. It was fine in the end but I remember sitting in the waiting room feeling like I had been hit with a shovel, and I could not tell you a word of what was explained to me beforehand. So how much of a gap do people leave between landing and the operation? Is two days over the top?

#2Margaret F(Joined Mar 2026 · 17 posts)July 2, 2026, 1:19 pm

Not been through it yet, but this is exactly what I have been trying to work out for October, so I will be reading the replies closely. My instinct was three days, purely because the idea of consenting to a knee replacement while half asleep does not appeal.

#3bkk_bound(Joined Sep 2025 · 19 posts)July 3, 2026, 9:07 am

Three full days for me and I would do the same again. Not really for the jet lag, though that helped, but because the day before surgery turned out to be busier than I expected: bloods, a chest scan, the anaesthetist, the consent conversation, then paying. If I had arrived the night before, all of that would have been crammed into one morning with me trying to read a consent form on no sleep.

The other thing nobody warned me about is that the pre operative appointments can find something. Mine did not, but the chap I met in the waiting room had his surgery pushed by two days over a blood result. He had a spare day in the plan and it cost him nothing. If he had not, it would have been flights.

#4Daniel MarshAdmin(Joined Feb 2024 · 246 posts)July 5, 2026, 10:52 am

Bkk_bound has put his finger on the reason I always suggest padding the front of the trip and not just the back.

Living here, the pattern I see is that people obsess over the return date, which is right, and then treat the outbound leg as pure transport. But the days before surgery are where the hospital does its own checks, where the anaesthetist actually meets you, and where the consent conversation happens properly rather than at speed. Those are also the last moments where saying "actually, hold on" costs you almost nothing. Arriving jet lagged into that is a bad trade for the price of two hotel nights.

Two to three nights is the range most readers here settle on, more if you have a condition that needs settling after a long flight or if the hospital has asked for tests on separate days. Ask the hospital to send you the pre operative schedule in advance and count backwards from it; some want you in for tests two days ahead, some the morning before. The wider planning side is in planning your surgery trip. And whatever gap you leave, get to bed in daylight hours on day one, because nobody has ever regretted that.

#5petem1970(Joined Aug 2025 · 16 posts)July 6, 2026, 8:30 pm

Booked three nights before. Cheaper than a wasted flight and I would like to actually understand what is being said to me this time. Thanks all.