Medical Massage For Post-Surgery Recovery
Massage therapy can play a vital role in post-surgery recovery. it can help to reduce swelling and pain, improve circulation, encourage healthy movement, and promote healing without causing damage or increasing pain. Gentle techniques can enhance recovery and prevent complications.
What kinds of surgery can massage help with?
Any surgery that affects movement in someway is likely something that massage therapy can help with.These are things like:
- Hip replacements, knee replacements, and other joint replacements
- Tendon, ligament, or muscle repairs and re-attachments (like rotator cuff repairs or ACL repair)
- Fracture repairs
- Cosmetic/Reconstructive surgeries like liposuction, lifts and tucks, augmentation/reduction/reconstruction, and more.
- Abdominal Surgeries (C section, appendectomy, hernia repair)
- Nerve release surgeries (Often used in conditions like carpal tunnel and plantar fasciitis syndromes)
- Spinal surgeries
What happens after surgery?
Surgery is traumatic for the tissues in your body. While it helps create the conditions for proper healing, some damage occurs during surgery too. This can lead to various responses from the body including inflammation and scar tissue formation. You could experience pain, limitations of movement, stiffness and other unpleasant symptoms as side effects of the surgery and the healing process.
How can massage help?
Healing from trauma
Massage therapy can help to manage pain and swelling after a surgery, making the recovery more comfortable. Importantly, this also makes it more comfortable to move, which is vital to optimal recovery with most surgeries. The more healthy movement you can do without pain, the more you are going to do, and the better you are going to heal.
Dealing with compensations
When you're uncomfortable after a surgery due to pain or movement limitations, you are of course going to do your best to work around that discomfort. Compensating by doing things like keeping weight more on one side of your body, or not bending a certain way, could lead to movement patterns that are not ideal. This is good in the short term, it allows you to adapt and heal after surgery while maintaining some level of functionality. However, it is important to make sure you don't get stuck in any compensation patterns that might cause problems down the road. Massage therapy can be a great way to keep these patterns healthy and minimal during recovery, and to restore balanced movement later on.
When is the best time to get a massage after a surgery?
Timing does matter in this case. Too soon and we can interfere with healing or cause damage to sensitive surgical sites. Too late and we miss the best opportunity to improve the healing process while it is most active.
Generally, the best time to have massage after most of the surgeries mentioned here is a matter of weeks. The exact number depends on the nature of the surgery. In most cases, massage is best started as soon as any immediate danger of damaging the surgical site has passed and your doctor has no other concerns about starting gentle massage. Massage techniques can start out very gentle and increase in intensity as your body is able to handle more with healing. This includes gradually including more movement, stretching, and deeper techniques.
The formation of scar tissue is an important consideration when it comes to timing. It is very difficult to change scar tissue after it has grown and the healing process has slowed down. This is why it is important to take advantage of the time while it is actively growing, to encourage it grows along with healthy movement patterns.
What massage can't do
As always, I like to be clear and realistic about who and what massage is good for.
Massage should be avoided in the following situations:
- active infection after a surgery
- open wound
- surgery with elevated risk of blood clots (DVT) unless cleared by doctor
- certain stages of cancer and/or cancer treatment (ask me and ask or doctor)
Looking for Pain relief or recovery support after a surgery in the Lehigh valley, PA?
Please reach out to me! I would be happy to discuss your situation and recommend myself or another professional provider depending on what will suit you best. I offer in home medical massage therapy appointments, and stay in touch with some other great local health professionals. I would love to talk with you!
