Appendectomy and a L/R leg imbalance?

TL/DR: I’ve had an issue with a power imbalance (60/40 to 68/32) on a new pair of Assioma duos and have been trying to suss out the source both by myself and with the nice folk at Favero but recently came to the conclusion that my laparoscopic appendectomy at the end of last year might have something to do with it.

Long version:
In need of a new power meter I decided on the Duos and bought them over thanksgiving/black friday week unaware that the following Monday my appendix would decide to go all alien on me and try to escape my body. I had about as good of an experience as one could have with a ct scan in the morning leading to surgery that evening and was sleeping in my own bed that same night. The surgery pain and recovery wise was about as good as it gets and I was doing Dans workouts about 2.5-3 weeks later very gingerly (with doctors approval of course). In that time my black friday purchases of a new saddle and said Assiomas came rolling in and I was eager to begin using them. I’ve been a 4iiii non-drive power user ever since I started training with power and this one was my basis for comparison. Everything was trending low power-wise in Trainerroad and when paired to my Wahoo I was getting power imbalances of 60-68 left 40-32 right depending on the ride. I’ve been in contact with the people at Favero and since nothing happened to my leg amidst all this I assumed that it was a software in the pedal issue. As stated the surgery was the last week of November, I recovered over December and was back pretty close to full restarting SSB1 at the beginning of January at a lower FTP. Body weight exercises and abdominal work also recommenced at that time which I hadn’t noticed any issues doing those exercises. I tend to neglect the legs as I feel I get that work on the bike and don’t want to hinder recovery with excess fatigue. However on the bike it’s been a different story to some degree. My left leg has had its IT band tightness issues return in spite of diligent stretching that helped the first time and the left quad does tend to fatigue faster. I had been blaming a bit of it on trying to get my saddle position right as I have had some issues with that with a previous iteration. I have almost the same saddle on my road bike and it took a while and quite a bit of tweaking till I got it just right and since I did it’s the most comfortable saddle yet to the point a barely need chamois so I figured that to be a big part of the problem but not a 60/40 L/R discrepancy problem. I feel that it may have been masking or even encouraging some poor form at the same time that I may have been babying my right side in the immediate post recovery and months to follow. But at the same time being a fan of Goddard for form work I haven’t noticed much difference during the ILT drills so that’s been a bit confusing. Has anybody else had or discovered similar issues post-op? I’m looking to finally figure out this power discrepancy issue as all my left side only power meters be it my old faithful 4iiii, my wife’s new 4iiii on her R8000 crank and using my Duos in single left side Uno form all read about the same which has had me blaming the 2 sided Duo for this issue.

Thoughts?

How long after the opp were you still noticing an imbalance? I had right sided colorectal keyhole surgery and after an enforced 5weeks of the bike and whilst my power meters are single sided I feel I have been more balanced since. What caused a more of an imbalance in me (noticeable difference in thigh size/ strength and eventually IT band problems) before it was identified was a leg length discrepancy (now shimmed).

Honestly just reached that realization that it could be a surgery induced imbalance today during a bout with Mary Austin. Other than the aforementioned fatigue and tightness there are no outward signs of a balance problem with muscle size or perceived weakness beyond what was displayed by the pedals. Late last year things were going well with balanced fatigue between legs so I don’t think there were any issues prior to. I am a bit of the beat my head against the wall training type when it means keeping good numbers so I may have ignored issues and bad habits creeping in as I worked and hoped to get back up to where I was as quickly as possible post surgery. I usually start SSB at the end of October so as to land my first recovery week for Thanksgiving week. That period went really well so there was much disappointment when the injury and subsequent setback hit. While trying to troubleshoot the Assiomas I was still hammering away using the 4iiii trying to get the numbers back up to where they were prior to the surgery and may have pushed too much in improper fashion to try to get close. I just hit the recovery week at the end of SSB2 and will use this time to try a bunch of focused right leg work with possibly adding another recovery week in to extend it. By then I hope to be a bit more balanced and maybe the Duos will tell me so but I won’t know till/if I get there.