Pain-Free Progress: Navigating Pain Management After Surgery

Are you scheduled for orthopedic surgery? Then you should know that physical therapy is an essential part of rehabilitation afterward. Moreover, our team can guide you through the entire rehab process, including pain management after surgery.

Post-surgical rehabilitation has several steps. It starts after you leave the procedure and continues until you regain strength and function. Physical therapy at Go Physical Therapy Balance Mobility Aquatics & Cancer Center can help with all those steps, including reducing your discomfort and helping you maximize your recovery.

Recovering from orthopedic surgery can be painful. However, pain management after surgery doesn’t just involve prescription medicines. Hands-on techniques, targeted exercises, and more can help you feel better while improving your long-term outcomes.

Keep reading to learn more about how our Grand Island, NE-based therapists can help you relieve pain and discomfort as you work through your rehabilitation.

Early Days: Managing Pain Immediately Following Surgery

There’s no getting around it: you will experience pain, swelling, and discomfort in the first few weeks after your surgery. Fortunately, early intervention through physical therapy can make a significant difference in how you heal.

At Go Physical Therapy Balance Mobility Aquatics & Cancer Center, we incorporate several strategies to help you feel more comfortable as you begin your rehabilitation journey:

Manual Therapy

• These hands-on techniques involve a therapist applying gentle pressure to muscles and joints to improve circulation. By improving blood flow to the affected areas, manual therapy can help reduce swelling and stiffness, making movement easier and more comfortable in the days following surgery.

Modalities

• We often use treatment modalities like heat therapy or ultrasound therapy to address post-surgery pain. These methods work by soothing irritated nerves, promoting relaxation, and encouraging tissue repair.

Therapeutic Exercises

• Therapeutic exercise is foundational to your rehabilitation program, and you’ll begin early on–as soon as your surgeon gives the okay. We start with simple movements to start mobilizing the affected joint. As you improve, we’ll gradually increase the intensity to move away from pain management and toward restoring strength and function.

Avoiding Long-Term Pain and Complications

However, post-surgical physical therapy also plays a critical role in preventing long-term issues after surgery. In fact, one of the primary goals of post-surgical rehabilitation is to avoid chronic pain, which can develop if the body doesn’t heal properly.

By starting physical therapy early and continuing through your recovery, you’re not just managing your immediate pain–you’re setting yourself up for better long-term outcomes.

For example, manual therapy and early exercise help prevent the formation of scar tissue, which can cause chronic pain and restriction well after your surgical site has healed. The strengthening exercises you’ll do as part of your rehabilitation help support and stabilize the affected joint, further preventing long-term pain.

Looking for Pain Management After Surgery? Look No Further!

Rehabilitating with the Go Physical Therapy Balance Mobility Aquatics & Cancer Center team is essential in helping you experience successful post-surgical outcomes. We’ll work with you and other members of your healthcare team to provide tailored pain management after surgery, helping to alleviate pain now and prevent it from becoming an issue in the future.

Want to learn more about what we can do? Schedule an appointment at our Grand Island, NE clinic to get started!