It’s Topic Tuesday!

Welcome back, everyone! Hope everybody had a safe and fun holiday weekend! Last week, we discussed a couple of different types of approaches surgeons have to gain access to the chest. For this week’s Topic Tuesday, we’ll take a closer look at post-surgical pain and what to expect in terms of recovery and pain control following these major surgeries. 

Where Does Post-Surgical Pain Come From?

Not all pain is the same, and the human body uses different types of pain signals depending on what structures are damaged and the type of damage that’s been done. Because of this, post-surgical pain is often a mix of several different types of pain that might not all be treated with a single medication. Patients may experience pain that is sharp, stabbing, aching/throbbing, or burning. Describing how your pain feels to the best of your ability can give your doctors clues about how best to treat your pain after a major surgery. 

How Much Pain Will I Be In After Surgery?

Like most things in medicine, it’s almost impossible to make a general statement about the amount of pain someone will be in after a major surgery. Post-surgical pain varies greatly based on a huge combination of variables like the surgery performed, the age of the patient, and their baseline pain tolerance. 

However, it is important to note that even the most aggressive (but still safe) pain control regimens after surgery DO NOT completely eliminate pain. Our goal is to make the patient as comfortable as possible, but some degree of pain after a major operation is unavoidable. 

How Do We Treat Post-Surgical Pain?

There are as many ways to treat post-surgical pain as there are ways to skin a cat, but some of the most common (and effective) methods include multimodal pain therapy and rehabilitation. Multimodal therapy involves using two or more different types of pain medication at once instead of just one. This allows doctors to target several different types of pain at once and also decrease the dose needed for each individual medication. 

Proper nutrition, enough sleep, and physical rehabilitation are key to getting your body to heal as quickly as possible after surgery. Your body needs nutrients as building blocks in order to heal the damage from surgery, and good sleep allows your body to focus on healing. Physical rehab will help reduce pain levels and get you back to your normal level of function much faster after surgery, while also lessening your risk for complications that might keep you in the hospital for longer. 

It is very important to listen to your doctors, physical therapists, and your own body when doing physical rehab. While some pain is to be expected (and is even encouraging sometimes), stop immediately and let your care team know if something feels very wrong or the pain is significantly worse than it usually is. 

Here’s a great article from the Cleveland Clinic that goes more in-depth into the kinds of pain medications doctors often use to treat post-surgical pain:

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/11307-pain-control-after-surgery

That’s all for this week, folks. Thank you so much for joining me here! Hope to see you again next time! 

Signing off,

Anirudh Karla