It is common to experience some pain after you have had surgery. You will be prescribed medication for the pain by your surgeon to take after the surgical procedure. However, this does not mean that you will not experience any pain later. Your pain won’t go away; it will just be bearable. However, the good news is that you can significantly reduce pain by combining other strategies to control and manage post-surgery pain.
Why you Should Manage Post-surgery Pain
Post-surgery pain management is crucial for you as well as your physician. Pain management will speed up your recovery process and make you more comfortable. Additionally, it will help prevent you from developing complications like blood clots and pneumonia after your surgery. Proper post-surgery pain management will also help you complete vital tasks.
Start Before the Pain
This means starting your treatment even before the pain gets worse. It usually becomes challenging to get the pain under control when it is increasing or severe. Imagine the pain you will experience when you wait for the medication to be absorbed into your body. Therefore, after your surgery, take pain medications prescribed to you, and as it improves, you can expand the intervals between doses until you can do your daily tasks without pain.
Use Non-prescription Pain Medications
With your doctor’s approval, you can use over-the-counter medications like Tylenol and NSAIDs to control your pain. OTC drugs are optional only if your pain is not severe enough to need prescription medications. Consult your physician for the right over-the-counter medicine for your pain.
Use CBD Products
CBD suppositories are great for chronic pain as they are anti-inflammatory. Chronic pain can be found in muscle aches, cancer-related pains, and headaches. Also, as far as post-surgery pain management goes, CBD can significantly help reduce pain. It is also known to improve your sleep quality and can be excellent for your recovery. CBD is available in various forms; however, it is more effective when ingested orally.
Use Mindfulness
Today, mindfulness is a common concept that many people think of when it comes to relieving stress and improving concentration. However, mindfulness activities can help reduce chronic pain like post-surgery pain.
You can consider working with a mindfulness practitioner or using the many resources that are made available to you. Mobile apps, CDs, and books can help you use mindfulness to manage your post-surgery pain. A mindfulness expert will help you focus on psychological images or listen to other sounds and music to achieve inner peace and relaxation.
Gradually Increase Physical Activities
While it might feel good to get back to your fitness routine after surgery, you will risk increasing the amount of pain. Remember that increasing your pain by performing aggressive physical activities only pulls you back on your recovery road. Therefore, it will be best to gradually increase your physical activities until you have completely recovered from your post-surgery pain and you can do exercises comfortably.
Brace your Surgery Site
One of the easiest ways to manage and prevent post-surgery pain is bracing the surgical incision. Bracing the incision site means holding the site when you do things that might put stress or pressure on the incision site; this might include coughing or even sneezing. Reducing the pressure on the incision site will decrease the pain you feel and lower your possibilities of developing post-surgery complications like evisceration and dehiscence.
Summing Up
Some things can really help you when it comes to your recovery—for instance, listening to your body, avoiding overdoing things, and taking your medicines as prescribed. Remember that failure to manage your pain can make it impossible to control and can make it worse.
Also, keep in mind that pain is a normal part of post-surgery recovery; however, increasing pain might be a cause of concern.
