Restoring Wellness: The Role of Massage Therapy in Post-Surgical Healing
Postoperative care leaves a patient in a susceptible and vulnerable position. Increased dependence on others and hindered movements incite a feeling of helplessness and boredom in the person. This takes a significant toll on their mental health.
At the same time, the dreadful procedures causing blood loss, tissue incisions and abrasions hinder their physical well-being. Therefore, appropriate post-surgical healing becomes a necessity.
What is Post-Surgical Healing?
Post-surgical healing is a complex, step-by-step journey to recovery. To relieve the symptoms of surgery, like body aches, inflammation, and immobility and prevent their long-term effects, one must go through all stages of healing with utmost heed. Taking timely medications at the advised dosages and getting appropriate rest speeds up the healing process. However, for a full recovery, it is often recommended by doctors to incorporate a secondary treatment like massage therapy along with medications and rest.
With no real side effects, massage therapy is a boon that helps relieve the adverse symptoms of surgeries. The most common types of massage therapies available include Swedish massage, deep tissue massage, lymphatic drainage massage, and myofascial release massage therapies. Other traditional forms of massage include Thai-Shiatsu massage, ayurvedic massage, Balinese massage, and sports massage.
Benefits Of Massage Therapy in Post-Surgical Healing:
Pain Management: Surgical procedures involve incisions and abrasions on the body. These incisions lead to tissue damage, which takes a significant amount of time to heal. The patients are often advised to take rest and restrict movement until complete recovery. This, however, causes constrained blood flow and retention of muscle tension, leading to sore muscles and body aches. Massage treatment reverses these symptoms by elevating blood flow to the fascia. It also improves the overall flexibility of joints and muscles and induces the secretion of natural painkillers.
Reduction of Swelling and Inflammation: When a body part gets injured, there is evident swelling or inflammation in the affected area. The same is the case for surgery. Due to tissue damage, there is evident fluid accumulation in the affected area.
Massage benefits enhance the flow of these fluids from the wound to the lymph nodes to enable proper drainage. This leads to a visible reduction in the swelling and inflammation of the afflicted area.
Improvement in Circulation: As we know, oxygen is vital for all body processes, including healing. Cellular regeneration or tissue repair occurs in the presence of oxygen. In the proliferative phases, oxygen activates macrophages and neutrophils to generate reactive oxygen species, which help boost the immune response and initiate tissue repair. Through massage therapy, blood circulation is enhanced, which leads to better oxygen transport and, ultimately, rapid tissue repair.
Boosting immune response: Massage therapy improves oxygen transport, which activates macrophages and neutrophils, thus increasing overall lymphocyte production. These lymphocytes produce antibodies against pathogens and help in rapid wound healing, thus boosting the body’s overall immune response.
Techniques Used in Post-Surgical Massage Therapy:
Swedish Massage: An expert masseuse utilizes this type of hands-on massage to relieve pain from the muscular tissues. It employs repetitive pressure application to the aching areas and massaging the entirety of the region. This improves blood flow and increases muscle mobility, thereby decreasing soreness and muscular tightness.
Deep Tissue Massage: If the surgical procedures affect deep tissues of the body, then deep tissue therapeutic massage is advised. It heals the damaged tissues by enhancing their strength. Deep tissue massage relieves chronic pain and regulates blood pressure by maintaining proper blood flow. It also proved beneficial in treating postpartum lower back pain.
Lymphatic Drainage Massage: This Post-Surgical Healing procedure is invariably followed by swelling and inflammation. This swelling of the afflicted region occurs due to lymph retention. Massage therapy enables fluid transport from the wound to the lymph nodes for proper drainage. This reduces the swelling of the afflicted area and relieves pain symptoms.
Myofascial Release: Postoperative immobility or abrasions can cause tension to build up in our muscles and fascia tissue. Several trigger points in the fascia can trigger tension accumulation, which can lead to extreme body aches. In myofascial release therapy, the expert massages these trigger points and applies pressure to the affected tissues until the knots untie beneath his hands, providing instant relief.
Psychological Benefits of Massage Therapy:
Lesser symptoms of pain and illness: People dealing with post-surgical stress suffer from stress. This extra stress can make their condition worse, which then leads to even more stress. It’s like a never loop. Massage therapy has indeed been found to boost the quality of life for many people. Regular massages have helped them feel better during their treatments. They get less pain, less anxiety & less depression. All this support puts these brave kids in a much better place, both mentally and physically, to fight their illness.
Stress and anxiety reduction: In addition to physical discomfort, surgery, however minor, takes a significant toll on mental well-being as well. Restricted movements can cause severe anxiety and stress. Helplessness and boredom are two primary factors for this stress. Therefore, giving proper massages to post-surgical patients can help them relax due to the soothing motions as well as the elevated levels of serotonin and endorphins.
Increase your overall happiness: Massage therapy is a great way to lower one’s stress and decrease anxiety. It also helps reduce irritability. By boosting brain serotonin and dopamine levels, the mix of these benefits creates a happier person overall. Happiness can ripple outwards, positively influencing both your personal life and those around you. Of course, not everyone can afford regular massages all the time, and they can be pretty expensive. However, those seeking a more natural way to improve their mental well-being can contact a reputed spa in Worli-Sparadise Spa.
Improved Sleep Quality: Proper sleep is imperative to recovery. However, one’s quality of sleep gets disrupted due to poor overall well-being. Keeping mental and physical distress at bay, massages induce deep sleep by offering muscle relaxation, improved blood flow, pain relief and reduced stress and anxiety. The soothing motions of massages also reduce blood cortisol levels and increase the secretion of dopamine and serotonin, which provides mental stimulation and a sense of peace, further enhancing sleep quality.
Conclusion
While entrusting your well-being in someone’s hand, care must be taken as post-surgical healing leaves you vulnerable. Make sure to find reputed centers with experienced staff in your area who specialize in physical therapy for the treatment. Let your doctors determine the onset period and frequency of the therapy. Refrain from overdoing it and from doing it without consulting your doctor. Massage therapy is an added bonus to your medication. It accelerates the healing journey with improved blood circulation, reduced muscle tension, and cell regeneration for tissue repair. It also enhances mental well-being by keeping blood cortisol in check and elevating the secretion of “the happy hormones.”
With no real side effects, massage therapy prevents the long-term effects of surgery on the body. Therefore, it must be incorporated into the post-surgical healing regime to restore overall wellness. For Body massage in Worli, visit Sparadise Spa.
