Chronic Post-Surgical Pain (CPSP)
Fact or Fiction?
There are a lot of misconceptions out there about chronic pain.
Try this Fact or Fiction quiz to test your knowledge about the facts.
Risk Factors
-
Use of opioid medication before surgery
-
Fear of surgery and pain
-
Catastrophic thinking about pain
-
Lack of social support
-
Female gender
-
Younger age
Diagnosis of Chronic Post-Surgical Pain
Treatment of Acute & Chronic Post-Surgical Pain
-
Medication: To reduce post-surgical inflammation, your doctor may prescribe anti-inflammatory medication. Depending on your pain severity, you may also be prescribed pain medications.
-
Gentle Exercise and Physiotherapy: Movement and gentle exercise are part of the recovery process after surgery. Regular movement, exercise, and physiotherapy can help boost strength and increase mobility after surgery and help in managing pain.
-
Massage Therapy and Acupuncture: Manual treatments such as Massage Therapy and Acupuncture can help to reduce the intensity and severity of pain following surgery.
-
Clinical Hypnosis and Relaxation: A trained pain psychologist can help patients reduce the severity of pain and cope with the emotional aspects of pain during their recovery by empowering them with pain self-management skills.
Physiotherapy and Exercise
Physiotherapy will help you improve your posture, physical function and quality of life as you become more active.
Active physiotherapy techniques will help with long term relief of pain symptoms. A physiotherapist can advise you about how to start becoming more active.
Active physiotherapy involves using movement-based treatments requiring active participation of the patient such as flexibility, strengthening, breath work.
Passive physiotherapy involves treatments that do not require the patient to use energy. These include massage, therapeutic ultrasound, traction, and the TENS machine.
Clinical Psychology and Counselling
Psychological approaches to pain management address the emotional aspects of pain, such as feeling sad or depressed, feeling anxious or worried, feeling hopeless and being angry or irritable.
Therapies such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can help you focus on how to deal with your pain and the emotions that come with it. These therapies will teach you how making even small changes can start to improve your pain.
Self-Management
Self-management is one of the most important treatments in your chronic pain journey. Studies have shown that when people actively manage their pain on a daily basis, they get the best results.
There are many self-management strategies that can help reduce pain.
- Becoming knowledgeable about chronic pain and what is happening in your body.
- Staying active every day by stretching and walking to improve your pain levels.
- Pacing your activities throughout the day to reduce your risk of flare up.
- Practicing daily relaxation techniques.
- Learning how to communicate with family, friends, and care providers.
- Learning how to cope with the emotions of having chronic pain including depression and anxiety.
- Improving your sleep so you can get more rest and cope better with your pain.
- Listening to your body to learn which treatments work best for you and to avoid flare ups.