Why You Need to Ask for Help after a Major Surgery

For several injuries and illnesses, surgery may be the best treatment option, though this is usually a tough decision for lots of people. After you have had surgery, you may want to return to your daily activities as usual but then, your body might say otherwise. The truth is that you need to undergo some rehabilitation before you regain your strength. There are specialists like our orthopedic surgeon in Debary who specialize in performing these procedures. They teach you the best ways to eat, take care of yourself and the right kind of exercises to perform both before and after surgery. There are a few great reasons why you may need to ask for help after undergoing a major surgery.

Time to Rehab

Rehabilitation is a post-surgical program that re-establishes joint movement and muscle strength around the joints where the surgery occurred. Although surgery takes a few hours, rehabilitation may take months and it is time and energy consuming.  During the initial stages of your rehab process, you will likely need people to drive you places, help you with small home chores, and take care of some of your basic needs.

Time to Gain Strength

To strengthen your muscles, you will need to do exercises on a routine basis.  You may need help to perform some of these exercises, whether you need people to hold your feet or simply be there in case you fall.  These exercises aim to increase the strength of the target muscles.  This force and overload applied on those muscles encourage them to grow this increasing their strength. If the muscles are weak, this can increase the risk of injury to the surrounding soft tissues and joints. To prevent injury, you will want to have help nearby.

Get Your Medications

To reduce pains and swellings: swelling after surgery is normal.  These swellings are caused by the release of chemicals that stimulate the nerve endings. Exercise after rehabilitation reduces swellings this improving the healing process. To combat the swelling, you may need someone to retrieve your medications or provide you with ice and compression.  Although you will not have swelling for long, it is helpful to have someone nearby to retrieve items you need to reduce the amount of times you need to put weight or pressure on your body to do things yourself.

Allow You to Heal

After you have surgery, time is one of the most essential things that you help you recover.  When you rush through your recovery process on your own, you may actually cause more harm than good.  This can result in tearing your scars, not treating your incision properly, or simply rushing back to work too quickly.  Ask for help to avoid any injuries from overdoing it too soon.

These are just a few of the many reasons why you may need help during the first few days of recovery after surgery.  When you get surgery, you may not even realize the pain you will be in until after.  Prepare yourself by having help nearby in case you have more than you bargained for.  Contact our orthopedic surgeon in Debary to hear more about our surgery recovery tips today.