How to Heal More Quickly After Injury or Surgery

 

Have you been injured, are you undergoing surgery or do you have recent scars?

The good news is that there is much you can do to aid your recovery more quickly.

Obviously, if you are already on a healthy diet, then you are on track in helping your recovery. But if you know you are about to undergo surgery, what you eat before and after can help you to heal more quickly.

Diet and vitamins

• Certain amino acids seem to help wounds heal faster so any meals should include fish, chicken, eggs, brown rice, walnuts, almonds and sunflower seeds. Vitamin C, Vitamin D and Zinc are important supplements too.
• While a glass of pure orange juice or a couple of whole oranges will take care of the minimum daily Vitamin C, this is a time when you need a lot more. Vitamin C is important because studies have found that levels of this vital vitamin can drop when you have been injured or undergone surgery. The minimum intake should be between 300 mg to 1 gram per day during a recovery period.
• Zinc reduces wound healing time as well as rapidly reducing wound size while bolstering your immune function to avoid infection. So take a supplement before surgery to bring your levels up. The recommended dose is 30 mg per day.
• During the summer months, thirty minutes or so of sunlight exposure during the warmer months on most of your body several times a week between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm should take care of the Vitamin D requirements of many. But it is surprising how many people are actually vitamin D deficient and now is not a good time for such deficiency. Take a Vitamin D3 supplement with Vitamin K2 and a good fat to help absorption.
• Apart from using sunlight to ensure your dose of Vitamin D, sunlight also accelerates wound healing too. Patients who are exposed to sunlight heal far faster than those who are not.
• A multivitamin that includes B12 and iron (to help bone marrow to form new blood cells) is good while an amino acid supplement that contains glutamine would be the cherry on the top.

Scar treatment

As far as scars are concerned, what could be better than to use a natural scar formula.  H-Scars from Healing Natural Oils is one such natural scar treatment and can even be used on fresh wounds (obviously that have closed up) so that you eliminate scarring before it occurs. Remember that an injury does not become a scar until the wound is complete healed.

Oral surgery

If you have undergone oral surgery, this can be more difficult because you need to eat well. Yet some patients lose weight after oral surgery because of difficulty eating plus any nausea they feel.

Again if you know you are going to have surgery, build up your immune system and levels of vitamins beforehand. Stock up on nutritious soft or liquid food such as liquid dietary supplements as well as rich broths and smoothies. There are plenty of online recipes for smoothies containing every kind of healthy fruit and vegetables, providing lots of scope for good nutrition.

Dry lips

When you are in hospital or recovering from injury of any type, you may find your lips become very dry.  I have found that applying a few drops of Simply Skin Vitamin Oil to be very helpful in treating your lips. This unique product works to nourish and feed your skin, providing unmatched nutrition for your lips - along with the rest of your skin.

Coping with pain and encouraging healing

By taking care of your body as you recover from any kind of surgery or injury, you will find your pain and healing time greatly reduced.

Even getting a massage or participating in yoga can be very beneficial while acupuncture can help speed wound recovery if you are interested in this alternative method. Treating the tissues near the wound with acupuncture can boost local circulation and help eliminate scar tissue too.

Finally, there is good news for the future, as scientist say they have discovered an antibody that could minimize the major internal bleeding seen in traumas like bullet wounds and car crashes. The team at Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation has discovered that a protein called histone is responsible for much of the damage during these traumas. They say they have found a specific type of antibody that can block the ability of this histone to cause such damage. Extensive testing will continue...

Build up your immune system before surgery

And if you are going to be undergoing surgery in the near future, make sure you build up your own immune system and follow the tips above for a quicker recovery from surgery, injury and scarring.

All the very best for a full and speedy recovery.

 

 

Sources

Brown J, Singh K, Dumitru R, Chan E, Kim M. The benefits of enhanced recovery after surgery programs and their application in cardiothoracic surgery. Methodist Debakey Cardiovasc J. 2018;14(2):77-88. doi:10.14797/mdcj-14-2-77. (Accessed, 2 October 2021).

Tartari E, Weterings V, Gastmeier P, et al. Patient engagement with surgical site infection prevention: an expert panel perspective. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control. 2017;6:45. doi:10.1186/s13756-017-0202-3. (Accessed, 2 October 2021).

Grass F, Schäfer M, Demartines N, Hübner M. Normal diet within two postoperative days-realistic or too ambitious?. Nutrients. 2017;9(12). doi:10.3390/nu9121336. (Accessed, 2 October 2021).

Son D, Harijan A. Overview of surgical scar prevention and management. J Korean Med Sci. 2014;29(6):751-7. doi:10.3346/jkms.2014.29.6.751. (Accessed, 2 October 2021).