Recovering After Surgery

Many people undergo necessary surgery in the hope that their health will be fully restored as soon as possible. Prior to surgery, you may have experienced considerable pain because of your condition which may have also impeded both your mobility and quality of life.

Therefore, if surgery is recommended, it’s a natural reaction to feel that you’re now going to be on the right path to having the full quality of your life restored almost immediately. Whilst this would be the ideal outcome, we all know that this is simply not always possible and your total recovery and the length of time it will take will very much depend on the nature of your condition, following your surgeon’s advice and your own efforts.

Listen To The Advice

Even before you undergo surgery, you’ll have been fully briefed on what to expect before, during and after surgery. With regards to your recovery, that will come in two stages. Firstly, you’ll be told what to expect immediately following the surgery and what will happen in hospital as well as your own responsibility to assisting with your recovery before you’re allowed home.

You may be required to rest completely in the immediate aftermath of surgery or in some cases, you’ll be required to undergo some gentle physiotherapy exercises, perhaps even within 24 hours of your surgery being completed.

It’s therefore important to listen to the advice of the surgeon and the rest of the medical team with regards to how you should approach your recovery as the information and instruction that they will provide you with will be given from the standpoint of trying to ensure that your recovery occurs at the correct rate to bring you back to full health as quickly as possible.

Don’t Try To Push Things Too Quickly

It’s important to remember that rest and recuperation are as equally important as any exercises or activities that are recommended to you as part of your recovery programme. Many people, particularly if they are active or sporty types, will often suffer setbacks as a result of pushing themselves too hard physically in an effort to recover more quickly only to find that in doing so, they suffer setbacks which can delay recovery even further and can even complicate matters.

Your recovery programme will have been tailored to suit both the condition you’re recovering from and appropriate for you as an individual. Therefore, factors such as your age, your overall level of fitness and any other health issues you may be experiencing will all need to be taken into account.

Therefore, it’s not a case of assuming that just because someone you know who went through the same operation was back to full health and had returned to work and their normal physical activity levels in ‘X’ amount of weeks that the procedure will be the same for you too. Simply follow the instructions of the surgical team and ask them any questions about your recovery if you need further clarification.

Maintaining a Positive Attitude

Once you’re recovering at home, you may still experience some pain for a time and your mobility might not be as quickly and as fully restored as you’d hoped for. However, it’s important to remember that it will be your psychological approach and positive attitude towards your recovery that will play as important a role in your recovery as the physical healing itself.

Set yourself goals by all means as that will help you stay focused and on track but make them realistic and be prepared for the occasional setback should it occur. By maintaining a pragmatic and sensible approach to your recovery, things are more likely to right themselves more quickly.

It will be the combination of all the factors above that will most likely determine the rate at which you’ll recover after surgery. What you must always bear in mind is that recovery is not an exact science or a ‘one size fits all solution’ but if you do feel that you are following all of the advice you’ve been given and still feel that you’re not at the stage you think you ought to be, have a word with your consultant when you go for one of your routine check ups as it’s only by telling them how you’re feeling and what you’re experiencing that they’ll be able to explain things better to you or perhaps modify their recovery instructions to aid you get better more quickly.