[Alastair]

Critical tissue issues

I would like to draw to all members attention, this important item which does occur in certain patients lives during not only their pre-surgery stage but more likely their post surgery stage.

Patients who are pre-or post surgery, quite often feel that they are not doing enough for their recovery. They increase their physical output and suddenly find that they are in quite a lot of pain. The next stop for them is the doctors and painkillers, and these resolve the immediate pain and so they tend to continue with even more physical output. They then come to the point where even with the painkillers, their physical pain has now become almost unbearable and so they increase the painkillers,only to discover that these have now become ineffective, and there doesn't seem to be a way out of the situation.

I think everybody understands that pain is caused by the nerves that are sending a warning to our bodies. If we take painkillers on top of that warning and increase our physical output, then we are actually aggravating the nerves of our bodies but we don't feel it because the painkillers are blocking the pain messages. Should the patient then continue to increase output even after having taken painkillers then the situation comes to a point where the painkillers are no longer effective. I have seen this many times with people trying to make a very quick recovery for domestic, business, or social reasons.

The only solution I have found to this, is for the patient to almost completely stop all activity, rest, use heat or ice to physically calm the nerve endings. Almost total rest is required so the body can have time to recover, and the nervous system time to wind back from the brink that it has been pushed to, and give time for the nervous system and the patient to rest. This can quite often take three to four weeks, which is amazingly infuriating to the patient as they've been wanting a quick result. Unfortunately, usually this is the only effective solution I have found, and a slow (slower than a normal recovery) and gentle recovery has to be effected by the patient.