I had MOHs surgery yesterday at Guys Hospital, London. My experience so far …
The whole team were lovely, and all female. The surgeon, knowing about my local anaesthetic phobia, was very kind and patient and very gentle. The procedure took about 40 minutes, my wound was dressed and I went back to the waiting area while my sample was sent to the laboratory.
3 hours later I was called back into the Operating room and was told that I had nodular bcc and all the nodules had been removed. What was left was superficial bcc.
Then the choice of what to do next was left for me to decide. This came as a bit of a shock as I wasn’t expecting to be given options!
I could have more MOHs, leave the wound open to heal by itself or close the wound with a flap and use topical cream 3 months + after surgery to treat the remaining superficial bcc.
After discussion, I chose to close the wound and have topical treatment. Then I was given a choice of where to take the flap from! Cheek or nose. After discussion, I said I would go with whatever they felt best and I had a flap taken from the area above the wound, on the side of my nose. The surgery took over 2 hours, involved numerous amounts of local anaesthetic injections and a lot of stitches, both dissolvable and removable.
I was shown a picture of what it looked like, before they dressed it, and it didn’t look as horrendous as I had feared. I was discharged and went home. I have a follow up appointment in one week to have the stitches removed.
On the journey home (2 + hours by car) the anaesthetic started wearing off and the pain hit! 8 - 9/10 pain. I was told to take Co-codamol and it has helped to dumb down but not totally eliminate the pain. I have a pressure dressing over my nose, a slightly black eye, can’t open my mouth fully as it pulls on my nose and hurts. A bit difficult to eat and brush my teeth but it’s less than 24 hours post surgery so not surprising.
I’ve been told to rest, not lift anything heavy, bend down, no vacuuming etc for a week. I guess this is because of potential bleeding. At present I haven’t had any bleeding and my dressing is clean. So far, so good.
I tried keto cote but the scar became redder. So I’ll wait awhile and try in a few weeks time. This could be because I’m in my 70s and everything takes longer. 
