Are you struggling with post-surgical pain, tightness, stiffness, or swelling? Chinese medicine has a wide variety of tools to help you move more easily through the healing process by decreasing pain and inflammation, improving circulation of blood and fluids, and ultimately enabling improved range of motion.
Thanks to the brilliance of western medicine, surgeries for orthopedic issues are now supremely common. Whether it’s a standard hip or knee replacement, repair of torn ligaments, or other joint repairs, we often underestimate what is needed to properly heal after surgery because surgeries are so common.
Here are four ways that Chinese medicine can help with post-surgical healing:
- Reduce muscle and fascia tightness and inflammation in the surgical area. Several Chinese medical tools are helpful for relieving tightness in the muscles and fascia affected by the surgery. Cupping helps to separate muscle and fascia adhesions, help cellular waste products circulate out of the area, and increase blood flow to the local area. Acupuncture can trigger and release tight muscles. And gua sha can be used to release fascia tightness. Combining these therapies reduces tightness and inflammation and can help increase range of motion after surgery.
- Reduce pain sensations in the surgical area. When acupuncture needles are inserted the brain releases endorphins which decrease the sensation of pain in the body. Using acupuncture to relieve pain through both the brain and the muscles is a powerful combination.
- Increase blood flow and circulation of body fluids. Acupuncture increases blood flow to the local area to improve healing. In cases where there is post-surgical swelling, acupuncture also can be used to help excess fluids drain out of the area.
- Recover energy after surgery. The body takes a hit when undergoing surgery due to the effects of blood loss, the healing required at a skin, fascia, and muscle level, and due to the draining effects of processing out anesthesia and rebalancing your stressed-out nervous system. Acupuncture can be used to recoup lost energy and speed the whole body’s rebalancing and healing process.
