An orthopedic surgeon explains how nutrition affects pain after surgery. Poor nutrition predicts higher pain levels and pain lasting six months post-op. Improving nutrition before and during surgery reduces inflammation, strengthens muscles, and speeds recovery.
As an orthopedic surgeon, I'm a big advocate of nutrition for recovery after surgery, and a lot of that's based around reducing inflammation and improving muscle strength, improving speedy recovery. But actually, recent studies show that nutritional status has a lot to do with pain after surgery as well. In this study, those who have lower nutritional status had more pain after surgery. What's really interesting is when the nutritional status was poor, it even predicted pain at 6 months postoperatively. So it stands to reason that if you can make an effort to modify your nutrition, really take that seriously during surgery and even before by preparing in advance, it can help you get through faster and have a better overall result.
