Colorectal Resection Side Effects and Warnings

Possible Complications

If you are planning to have a resection, your doctor will review a list of possible complications, which may include:

• Damage to other organs or structures

• Infection

• Bleeding

• Hernia forming at the incision site

• Blood clots

• Complications from general anesthesia

• Intestinal obstruction due to development of scar tissue

Some factors that may increase the risk of complications include:

• Having neurological, heart, or lung conditions
• Age: older than 70 years
• Obesity
• Smoking
• Previous abdominal surgery or radiation therapy
• Infection
• Diabetes

Call Your Doctor

If any of the following occur, call your doctor:

• Redness, swelling, increasing pain, excessive bleeding, warmth, drainage, or bulging at the incision site
• Nausea and/or vomiting that you cannot control with the medicines you were given after surgery, or which persist for more than two days after discharge from the hospital
• Severe abdominal pain
• Signs of infection, including fever and chills
• Cough, shortness of breath, or chest pain
• Pain and/or swelling in your feet, calves, or legs
• Pain, burning, urgency, frequency of urination, or persistent bleeding in the urine
• Blood in your stool or black, tarry stools
• Diarrhea
• Feeling weak or dizzy
• If you had a colostomy created:

• Not collecting stool in the ostomy pouch
• The skin around the stoma appears irritated, moist, red, swollen, or develops sores

In case of an emergency, CALL 911.