Post Surgical Pain

Chicagoland Pain Management

Interventional Pain Management Specialists located in Bolingbrook, IL & Hinsdale, IL

Having surgery is a serious step that’s bound to result in discomfort afterward, but you wouldn’t expect surgical pain to persist after the wounds heal. The expert pain doctors at Chicagoland Pain Management in Bolingbrook and Hinsdale, Illinois, have many years of experience in helping patients who are experiencing post-surgical pain and finding treatments that provide relief from the discomfort. Call Chicagoland Pain Management today or book an appointment here on their website to learn how they can ease your post-surgical pain.

Post Surgical Pain Q & A

What is post-surgical pain?

Pain is a normal consequence of undergoing surgery, and it’s kept under control using pain-relieving medications until the tissues at the surgery site heal, and the pain resolves. However, in some patients, pain following surgery persists after the typical healing period of 3-6 months.

Post-surgical pain feels different to the pain a patient felt before their operation because it’s most often due to nerve damage that takes place during the surgery. All surgeries carry a risk of causing nerve damage, but the risk is higher in procedures such as:

Inguinal hernia repair
Breast surgery
Thoracic surgery
Leg amputation
Coronary artery bypass surgery

Surgeons take extreme care when carrying out operations to try to ensure there isn’t any nerve damage, but this isn’t always possible.

How is post-surgical pain diagnosed?

Feeling pain for the first few months after an operation is normal, as the incised tissues need time to heal. In some cases, pain persists due to the surgery not successfully resolving the primary cause of the problem, in which case further surgery may be required.

If you have pain that persists after an operation, you should consult your doctor, who can examine you and run tests to see if there’s an identifiable cause for the pain. If there isn’t a need for further surgery, treatment focuses on relieving the pain.

How is post-surgical pain treated?

Every patient’s experience of post-surgical pain is different, so each person needs a customized treatment plan. At Chicagoland Pain Management, your pain doctor uses a comprehensive, multimodal approach, encompassing various forms of therapy to optimize the relief of pain.

Most treatment plans start with the least invasive forms of therapy, which include:

Pain-relieving medication
Low-dose antidepressants
Anti-seizure medication
Physical therapies

Many patients find these first treatment approaches relieve their post-surgical pain, but if you’re not improving, you have other options, such as:

Dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neuromodulation
Implantable drug pump therapy
Ketamine infusions
Radiofrequency ablation
Spinal cord stimulation
Vertiflex®

The approach your doctor takes depends on the nature and location of your pain, and you may need to try a number of treatments before finding the one that works for you.

If you aren’t recovering from an operation as well as you expected and are still feeling pain, call Chicagoland Pain Management today or book an appointment online.

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