When there are several parts of your body under pain, brain does not know which one to crib about :)
However, as part of the healing process, most of the areas stopped bothering me. The thigh has just a skin scrape, that healed first, by 12th post up day. Bandage out. Skin is regenerating. Its still a sensitive piece, but can not be categorized as painful.
Then the hand, the immobilizing cast is out. Its the left wrist, so with a soft bandage movement and lifting is a problem. This one I know will take a month before I am doing a push up or a surya namaskar. But this pain is more of a numbing pain, its like few nerves are cut. And the place has become dead, not completely so.. but with some ticklish sensitiveness. So one pain type - numbing, ticklish sensitive. And in certain angles, it sends a signal like electrocution.
The comes the left shoulder, where the 7 inch oozing tubes were inserted all the way in to the neck.
Here it is a bigger area, and is again numb because of some nerve damage, and very different type of pain. This is strange because, if one touches is softly, it gives very unpleasant feeling. But I can bang the shoulder hard with my right fist, does not bother much !
Neck and face - main areas of surgery. The neck pain is more of stifling nature. Limited degree of rotation. There is a throbbing pain, the ones that pushes someone to a pain killer, along the line of the surgery and the stitches. Almost constantly there. Then cheek portion is like a foreign body stuck on the the face, it is again a numbing pain. So sensitive, that the thought of running a razor for shaving is nerve wrecking.
I wanted to focus on managing my pain, using pure common sense. And the first step to that was to segregate, classify all the different parts that pain.
Most of the numbing, nerve damage related ones, I figured can be relieved by local muscle exercises. Few experiments, and one can settle on the right motions of the right body parts to control and reduce that pain.
The next easier one to deal with is - the stiffness in the neck because of the surgery line. I figured, once the stainless staples that holds the flesh along the line of surgery is gone, may be it would be ok on it own. So, leave it alone. Turn the body too when head has to turn. Check !!
Now comes the most painful part, the stretching cheek because of the bug in the surgery, and the throbbing pain. Doctor had prescribed a 6 painkillers a day ! Diclofenacs and Acetofenomins.
But, I know they cause havoc in the stomach. This is the part that took, most amount of work to work around it.
The first experiment was to just "feel" the pain, meditate on the throbbing and many times I fell asleep just doing that. And it was the best way to get in to meditative state. I can never medidate and keep my mind focused on one thing. However, focusing on a throbbing pain was quite easy !!
With that I would slowly raise the bar of tolerance and reduce the number of pills going through. Another SMALL win. By 15th post op, I was free of pain killers. And also found out alternative way of Diclofenac administration - Skin Patch ! No longer need to worry about stomach issues, no more pills. I stacked a few of them, in case my heightened tolerance is tested again.
Another interesting experiment was quite accidental. When I used to lie down and take the throbbing pain, my wife would run her fingers through my hair to feel better. Surprisingly I felt that multiplies the pain. I could feel the pain from my neck and cheek spreading through the line of her finger motion to my head !! But you don't tell some one who is trying to obviously help to reduce the pain, to go away :) Thinking out of the box, quickly, I suggested her to run her fingers on the numbing, sensitive portion, quite in different places of my body which was painful when touched softly.
Viola ! That did the trick. It was amazing distraction for the throbbing neck line and cheek pain. Many times, I went to sleep with this.
However, as part of the healing process, most of the areas stopped bothering me. The thigh has just a skin scrape, that healed first, by 12th post up day. Bandage out. Skin is regenerating. Its still a sensitive piece, but can not be categorized as painful.
Then the hand, the immobilizing cast is out. Its the left wrist, so with a soft bandage movement and lifting is a problem. This one I know will take a month before I am doing a push up or a surya namaskar. But this pain is more of a numbing pain, its like few nerves are cut. And the place has become dead, not completely so.. but with some ticklish sensitiveness. So one pain type - numbing, ticklish sensitive. And in certain angles, it sends a signal like electrocution.
The comes the left shoulder, where the 7 inch oozing tubes were inserted all the way in to the neck.
Here it is a bigger area, and is again numb because of some nerve damage, and very different type of pain. This is strange because, if one touches is softly, it gives very unpleasant feeling. But I can bang the shoulder hard with my right fist, does not bother much !
Neck and face - main areas of surgery. The neck pain is more of stifling nature. Limited degree of rotation. There is a throbbing pain, the ones that pushes someone to a pain killer, along the line of the surgery and the stitches. Almost constantly there. Then cheek portion is like a foreign body stuck on the the face, it is again a numbing pain. So sensitive, that the thought of running a razor for shaving is nerve wrecking.
I wanted to focus on managing my pain, using pure common sense. And the first step to that was to segregate, classify all the different parts that pain.
Most of the numbing, nerve damage related ones, I figured can be relieved by local muscle exercises. Few experiments, and one can settle on the right motions of the right body parts to control and reduce that pain.
The next easier one to deal with is - the stiffness in the neck because of the surgery line. I figured, once the stainless staples that holds the flesh along the line of surgery is gone, may be it would be ok on it own. So, leave it alone. Turn the body too when head has to turn. Check !!
Now comes the most painful part, the stretching cheek because of the bug in the surgery, and the throbbing pain. Doctor had prescribed a 6 painkillers a day ! Diclofenacs and Acetofenomins.
But, I know they cause havoc in the stomach. This is the part that took, most amount of work to work around it.
The first experiment was to just "feel" the pain, meditate on the throbbing and many times I fell asleep just doing that. And it was the best way to get in to meditative state. I can never medidate and keep my mind focused on one thing. However, focusing on a throbbing pain was quite easy !!
With that I would slowly raise the bar of tolerance and reduce the number of pills going through. Another SMALL win. By 15th post op, I was free of pain killers. And also found out alternative way of Diclofenac administration - Skin Patch ! No longer need to worry about stomach issues, no more pills. I stacked a few of them, in case my heightened tolerance is tested again.
Another interesting experiment was quite accidental. When I used to lie down and take the throbbing pain, my wife would run her fingers through my hair to feel better. Surprisingly I felt that multiplies the pain. I could feel the pain from my neck and cheek spreading through the line of her finger motion to my head !! But you don't tell some one who is trying to obviously help to reduce the pain, to go away :) Thinking out of the box, quickly, I suggested her to run her fingers on the numbing, sensitive portion, quite in different places of my body which was painful when touched softly.
Viola ! That did the trick. It was amazing distraction for the throbbing neck line and cheek pain. Many times, I went to sleep with this.
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