I've had two. The first was to remove a large cyst from my ovary and was horrendous. I was in agony for weeks, had to take 3 weeks off work and it took about 6 weeks before I felt like I was getting back to normal. It even hurt to eat, I kid you not. I had shoulder tip pain for about 2 weeks. I should mention though that this turned out to be a pretty serious surgery, I was in theatre for nearly 4 hours and lost a lot of blood. Talk about feeling butchered...

The second was 6 months later (lucky me!) and was a walk in the park in comparison. I had a hysteroscopy done during this lap. I felt a million times better from the time I woke in recovery and was back at work the next week. Discomfort was minimal.

I would be prepared to take some time off work if needed, it really does depend on the person and what is done during the procedure.