The Road to Recovery Starts here!
ICE has helped
I was told by my surgeon that there would be some bruising in the area. Obviously you can’t ICE on the scar area, but it was the muscles that needed to calm down, so I iced my back for 10 mins every two hours in the Multifidus region. This I believe has aided my recovery in the early days following surgery.
Diet and Fibre
Essential that you realise you are going to have to go to the loo to evacuate your bowels, your natural instinct, is to hold back as you don’t want to push and one thing you don’t want to do is strain, unfortunately tables such as painkillers can bung you up a bit and make it harder to go, you need to be prepared for this, so think fruit and fibre, and whole grain fibre cereals they will help , and yes the fruit and berries do make a big difference, orange juice , and drink plenty of water. If you know you are going into hospital, then help yourself by getting into a routine of eating in this way and have your body prepared having a smooth conclusion to this matter, will help you to feel so much better.
The Exercises I used and found most helpful
Clenching your Gluteus muscles, supports your lower back on movement and lifting
As I said Stability and support of your lower back are vital .Your Gluteus Maximus being the largest muscle is great for aiding movement such as sitting ,standing and stretching and co-ordination of actions to reduce pain when clenched.
Get those muscles back in action gently.
The area will be bruised, but the ICE will help with that, as soon as you feel able they need to start being worked. This is done by “lifting your tummy button up towards your back”. Yes, it does take practice! When you are proficient, you can then work up to four sets of ten, holding this for four seconds at a time.
1st Sitting upright in a chair, back straight legs slightly apart breath in through your nose take a deep breath and clench your glutes at the same time, you will feel your bottom rise slightly and your tummy lift towards your back .)
2nd Again sitting upright in chair legs slightly apart lift hands towards forehead each side, while holding forehead, breath in clench glutes and then slowly rotate your body from the central position to your right, then back to the central, then to the left, the back to central, repeat this again in four sets of ten, holding this for four seconds at a time. Please remember to do this slowly if at any point you feel pain then stop. One thing I did find with this was it got rid of the build of wind that you seem to have after the abdominal surgery which in its self can be very painful.
3rd Walking a short distance is also greatly beneficial try starting with about 10 minutes a day, then building steadily from there; take it steady it is not a race
“I would love to have a massage”, but you think you can’t, you feel it could and it would help greatly, but “Normal Orthodox massage would not in my professional opinion be appropriate as lying in a Prone position The area of surgery is a local contra-indication”.
The massage benefits of Post Operative Massage, we have found are the relief of pain, increase blood circulation, nutrients being transported to aid restoration of the injured area The major benefit that I can evidence is vasio dilation ( Size of blood vessels increasing).Thus helping to relax the muscle and making it less tight /hypo-tonic. The Neuromuscular techniques used in treatments, enable the release and breakdown of Adhesions that may have formed due to the excessive release of collagen while our body was building up the Granulation tissue/ scar tissue necessary , to repair the injured area, we all realise that, after tissue injury we all develop scarring to some extent, this is the bodies way of healing the damaged area, it is when it this Granulation tissue continues to be produced that problems can occur.
By working with the patient laying supine, the area of surgery being a local contra indication is avoided. Also this reduces the need of reliance on pain reducing pharmacological input, “I was prescribed painkillers at the hospital, as I am sure everyone is, but they did not agree with me as is the case for a few people.
