Abdominal Adhesions: when pain after surgery persists and a technique to resolve it
You’ve had abdominal surgery.
Now you’ve got persistent abdominal pain.
Not the result you were after.
Well, don’t look back now – most likely, you had to have the surgery – it was the best or only choice available to you. And you can’t go back, only forward!
So how to move forward with this abdominal pain after surgery when you’ve had all the medical checks, and they tell you it’s “just” adhesions?
Well, first things first.
What are adhesions? “Adhesions” is really just a fancy name for scar tissue, but doctors often use it to refer to scar tissue they assume is more extensive or more restrictive as a way of explaining your pain. Occasionally, they’ll use the word “adhesions” because they actually found them when doing your surgery, as in
“Boy, everything was a mess in there!” or
“Gosh, everything was stuck to everything else!”
(These comments don’t do anything for your confidence, and may actually play a role in worsening the pain you experience via some complicated brain mechanisms.)
Adhesions form in an estimated 50-100% of cases of surgery (I know, a pretty broad statistic.) They start forming within hours of the surgery. When they become a problem (i.e. are assumed to be responsible for ongoing abdominal pain after surgery) – the suggested treatment is: surgery. (Yes, strange but true.)
But there is another technique that works.
(And whether or not you need to have surgery for adhesions or not, it is always a good idea to have this technique done after to maximise recovery).
Visceral manipulation is the technique.
It’s a mouthful to say but very easy to have done, providing you can find an appropriately-trained therapist.
Visceral manipulation is something I do a lot of in clinical practice in Brisbane, Australia. More to come on this wonderful technique, but in the meantime, make an appointment with us or track down a therapist trained in visceral manipulation closer to you!