How To Deal With Postoperative Pain

You most likely will experience postoperative pain after undergoing major surgeries like hip replacement surgery or knee replacement surgery, a cardiac surgery, or a procedure on other vital organs. To help manage this pain, your doctor will recommend various medication as well as non-medication techniques.

Postoperative pain can be extremely unpleasant and if not treated properly can become the chronic pain (i.e., pain that lasts longer than three months) and chronic pain can become difficult to manage not only for patients but doctors as well.

Being able to manage pain after undergoing major surgeries not only helps in speeding up your recovery but also reduce the risk of developing certain complications such as pneumonia and blood clots.

The site of the surgery is not the only area where you’ll feel pain or discomfort. Patients often feel muscle pain in the neck, shoulders or back. Certain important activities like sitting, walking, climbing stairs, and even coughing will cause pain after the surgery in and around the incision site.

Depending on the type of surgery you are having, you may receive more than one type of pain treatment. Certain side effects like nausea, vomiting, itchiness, and drowsiness can occur. A few pain treatments are as listed below:

1. Nerve Blocks: In order to control the pain after the surgery, you might be given a nerve block. A nerve block controls pain isolated to a small area of the body such as a leg or an arm. One of the advantages of using a nerve block is that it may allow the amount of narcotic medication to be reduced significantly which in turn results in reducing the risk of vomiting and nausea.

2. Oral Pain Medication: Oral pain medication will be prescribed by the doctor after the surgery. Oral pain medication includes opioids(narcotics), non-narcotics analgesic and non- steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID’s).

Other interventions like acupuncture, physiotherapy, and complementary therapies are increasingly recognizing as helpful in managing pain.