Despite what many doctors may tell you, your road to recovery following surgery doesn’t end once you step out of the hospital. If you want to reap the full benefit of your surgical procedure, or recover fully from an emergency procedure, there are steps you must take at home as well. The specific steps to take are going to vary significantly on the type of surgery you have, but all will include some combination of dietary, lifestyle, and treatment recommendations. Let’s go step by step through the different types of care and I’ll share with you what my plan following my endometriosis excision surgery* will be.
*Please note that this link references that women have endometriosis, when in fact any person assigned female at birth and in extremely rare cases cis men can have this chronic disease.
Rest
Good rest is such an important part of recovery from illness, injury, anything!
REST. This is the absolute most important factor in recovery from any condition: this not only includes sleep but moderating your daytime activity as well. You may already know the importance of sleep in recovery: most of our body’s healing factors are activated while we sleep (trigger warning: harm to animals). Most of your body’s energy should be focused soley on healing, so it’s important to moderate daytime activity as well as getting more than your typical amount of sleep. It’s likely that you will become tired with even basic tasks - at first even taking a shower can exhausting, but even a week or two out it may still tire you to walk around the block. Listen to your body and take the rest and sleep that you need. Napping doesn’t have the exact same effect as deep nighttime sleep, but it is beneficial too!
For my particular surgical procedure, 2-6 weeks off from work is recommended. The wide range is to account for variations in the level of surgical care needed as well as the activity level of the job you are returning to. Endometriosis excision can be a tricky thing to assess as it is not easy to image from outside of the body, so the full spread of the endometrial tissue is not known until the time of the surgery. As my job requires me to be on my feet (but doesn’t require heavy lifting), I’m scheduling 4 weeks off from work for myself with potentially the first 2 weeks back at work a bit lighter. I’ll be able to assess my return plan more appropriately following my surgery and possibly take on a fuller schedule immediately.
Nutrition
Your body uses certain nutrients more when healing, so do your best to provide these by eating a healthy diet before hand, and follow surgery with a healing diet
A healthy diet isn’t always the same as a healing diet. Leading up to a planned surgery a healthy diet is great - eat plenty of veggies and fruits of every color, good fats like olive oil, and a healthy amount of protein. Avoid sugars, fried foods, all the usual good healthy dietary habits. You may also consider some additional supplements or herbs as well: generally supplements like zinc, b complex, vitamin D, vitamin C, or a food supplement like collagen can be very beneficial to preparing for surgery if cleared ahead of time with your surgeon. Some supplements like fish oil are not recommended to be taken 2 weeks before a planned surgery, though they do have healing benefits and can be taken after. I always recommend chatting with a natural health practitioner like a Naturopathic doctor or Functional Nutritionist to figure out the right supplement regimen for you.
Following a surgery a gentle healing diet is recommended. Your body has just had a big shock, so it’s important to not overtax your digestive system. Grain porridge like a chicken ginger congee, stews or brothy soups are perfect at first. Knowing my body and knowing that I am prone to nausea when I feel unwell, I plan on sticking to these very gentle foods for at least a week, then adding in additional gentle foods like roasted root veggies, fish or slow roasted meats, or stir-fried veggies. I will omit sweets, dairy (typically ghee is acceptable), or raw foods (no salads), as these types of foods take more work for the digestive system to break down. At this time supplementation is also recommended - typically the same pre-op supplements with the addition of Omega 3 fish oils and additional vitamin C and collagen. Herbal supplementation is great too! I’ll be taking herbs to assist in clearing out the anesthesia and help me break down and clear out any necessary pain medications, as well as herbs to help with post-op pain and reduce my reliance on any pharmaceuticals.
Lifestyle: home care!
There are many ways to help give your body a head start to healing! One of my favorite tools is moxibustion, an easy to learn East Asian technique to assist in the repair of tissue.
As many of you know by now, I am a huge fan of moxibustion! It’s a wonderful indirect technique that can be done at home when your tissues are not yet ready to receive a more physical healing touch like massage or physical therapy. Moxibustion is the burning of the mugwort plant near the skin or on the skin in a way that warms the body while avoiding any burns. Something about the particular type of warmth the burning plant delivers activates healing potential in your body (trigger warning once more for injury to animals) to speed surgical or injury recovery.
In case you decide to look up this amazing technique online - I’ll warn you ahead of time that you may see some pictures of traditional techniques. Traditionally it was normal to burn the skin as part of the treatment, but it turns out that you can get plenty of benefit without burning the skin! In my clinic I perform and teach techniques that protect your skin while still delivering the healing benefit of moxibustion.
Generally for surgical or injury recovery moxibustion is done locally over the area(s), avoiding anywhere you may have adhesive sticking. Your acupuncturist may have additional locations to recommend based on your healing journey.
Treatment
Your body does have innate healing wisdom, but sometimes a little direction is very helpful in healing correctly to avoid unnecessary scarring or adhesion. You can think of these unwanted affects of healing as your body being overly enthusiastic about the healing process. Natural treatments can help guide the body in appropriate healing.
Post operative treatment is going to be very individual to the type of procedure being completed. Some procedures do have a normal standard of care following: a joint replacement or ligament repair has a set amount of physical therapy and specialized exercises. Unfortunately, many types of surgery do not have a standard recommended care even when appropriate care can be incredibly helpful.
“Post-surgical adhesions still represent a major complication in most surgeries, with a particular impact on procedures in the peritoneum, uterus, pericardium and tendon where they may result in a serious setback for patients in terms of outcomes, causing pain, reoperation and tissue dysfunction.”
Adhesions are internal scar tissues that interfere with normal organ function and can potentially cause substantial pain. Although adhesions are a significant risk in any surgical recovery, not much in the form of follow up treatment is recommended until symptoms emerge. Thankfully, natural health methods have a lot to say in this department! Rest, diet, and lifestyle are all going to contribute to reducing the chance of adhesion formation, and treatments are the final piece to that puzzle to give your body extra direction to that healing process. Acupuncture can be a great tool and can be done relatively soon following surgery if done indirectly from the surgery site. Other healing professions like physical therapy or medical massage are typically safe to do 2 weeks following a surgical procedure, though may vary based on your surgeon’s recommendations.
I have already set up physical therapy and medical massage appointments for myself 2 weeks following treatment, and I have my acupuncturist on my list of resources as well. For my type of procedure and knowing how my body responds to manual treatment, I prioritized the more physical types of treatment for my post-op care.
Consult your health care team!
There is no one size fits all approach to healing…
While the building blocks to post-surgical recovery are the same, the specific details of each of those blocks may look very different depending on both the type of procedure and the type of person! Always consult your health care team before and after a planned surgical procedure.
In the time leading up to my surgery I’ve been thankful to be able to receive care from a number of members of my health care team! Sheila Fay from Balanced Life Healing gave me a wonderful Arvigo abdominal massage and taught me the at home technique for the time leading up to my procedure (and after a safe amount of time post-op, likely 2 weeks). Kathia Wu from Waterlily Wellness has given me some absolutely amazing acupuncture treatments to help with my anxiety and general health. Star herbalist Emma O’Brien of LavanDoula made me a bomb herbal healing salve. I consulted with Naturopathic doctor Shiva Barton at Winchester Natural Health for an appropriate supplement regimen pre and post op. Finally, I’ve booked appointments 2 weeks post op with Karlene Salguero from Women’s Journey Physical Therapy and medical massage with Pradhuman Nayak. It is a lot of treatments, but I’m thankful to be blessed with an amazing healthcare team and want to make the absolute most of this surgery by taking advantage of their wonderful care.