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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.
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 a variety of drugs used to treat pain. Drugs commonly
used to treat post-operative pain are narcotics and local
anesthetics. The chart below offers an easy way to visualize
the effects of these different pain relief options.
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Post-op
pain relief
