Relieving your post-surgical pain is an important part of your overall recovery from your operation. It's also an important objective for your surgeon and healthcare team.

 

 

The amount and type of pain you have following surgery may be different from anyone else, even if they have had the same operation. The pain you may experience after surgery is the result of a stimulus to thousands of nerve cells that rest beneath your skin that sense heat, cold, touch, light, pressure and pain. When there is an injury to your body, such as surgery, these tiny cells send messages along nerves into your spinal cord and then up to your brain. Medications given for pain relief can block these messages anywhere from the site of injury all the way to the brain.

 

 

Relieving post-surgical pain is important as it enables you to return to your normal life as quickly as possible.  In surgical patients, pain management often begins before surgery, continues during surgery and is extended after surgery.  A coordinated approach to pain management throughout the surgical process is important to determine the best methods to comibine, administer and time the use of drug agents.

 

 

Medical science has produced significant advances for the treatment of post-surgical pain, including some that do not require the use of narcotics.

 

 

There are two major ways that pain is relieved after surgery.  The most familiar is the use of narcotics like morphine.  These drugs can cause unpleasant side effects such as nausea, drowsiness, constipation and difficulty breathing.  They may also be habit forming.  Medical science has developed a new way of relieving pain that can cut down or even stop the need for these drugs.  This important new type of pain relief is called Peripheral Nerve Block.  To learn more about the Fairview Hospital Pain Management Center, click here.