The Fibromyalgia Podcast Episode #142
Recently I was on Tami Stacklehouse’s podcast talking about having major surgery when you have Fibromyalgia. As part of our conversation I shared some practical tips for preparing and managing after surgery, which are below.
If you’d like to listen to the whole podcast, you can find it here – I’d love you to listen!
The MOST important thing: Keep everything you need close by
Get yourself a light bag – one that can be worn crossbody is useful if you’re on crutches. Having your ‘must haves’ nearby helps you keep your independence! Some things I had in my bag:
- Moisturizer/Hand cream
- Ear buds and earplugs
- A pen & paper
- Medications (in a plastic bag to make it easy to find the right one at the right time!)
- A book/your kindle
- A powerpack for phone/kindle
- Tissues/Wet wipes
- Lip balm
- Glasses Cleaner
- Travel sized toothpaste and toothbrush
Other practical tips (learnt by trial and error!)
To organise before your surgery:
Get a pickerupperer – not sure of the technical term! Something for retrieving items from the floor. I have been amazed at how many things either fall on the floor or live there in the first place. I got one for upstairs and one for downstairs so there was always one close by. Also handy for hauling up pants!
A device to help you put your socks on is also really helpful as is a long shoe horn & both devices were a game changer for my independence.
Source a good sturdy chair and something to rest your feet on before your op – once you are up and about you’ll still need to sit down/rest often. A good chair and a foot rest (doesn’t have to be fancy) will help with posture and allow you to do lower body circulation exercises to help prevent blood clots.
Find somewhere to store your crutches & pickerupperer when you’re sitting down – they will fall over, a lot..My clever partner bought in a clay pot from the garden.
An electric heating pad is much easier to wrangle than a wheat bag which needs re-heating often (although they are helpful too) and a cold pack is good for your surgery scar.
Consider having some frozen meals prepared/bought before your surgery &/or if you can get a meal prep service for a few weeks this is a god send, because you probably won’t be able to cook for a while or even think about telling your caregiver/significant others what to do, if cooking isn’t their thing! The more nutritious and tasty the better – All that energy you’re using on healing means you will be hungry!
Get a stick on shower shelf if you don’t have one and a long handled sponge. Purchase wet wipes and dry shampoo – there are some great sustainable and non-perfumed varieties available – Wetwipe ‘baths’ rather than a shower every day will save energy as taking a shower is a huge energy sapper.
Ask someone to help you with the practical tasks you need to get through &/or pace yourself really well – you don’t want to be exhausted going in to surgery. One thing I found really helpful was to get someone else to help me to change the sheets. It’s a hard task for many of us!
Post-surgery tips:
Keep what you need nearby at night – including a torch in case you need to get up in the night You may get quite sweaty at night – two sets of sheets on the bed &/or cotton nightwear can be helpful. And sticking your legs out from under the duvet if you can!
Hydrate – This really helps to get those hospital drugs out of your system and helps with postoperative constipation (I’m a New Zealander, so Kiwifruit is my go to!)
Comfy clothes – try to stay in your PJ’s all the time – it begins to get depressing after a while – throw on a nice scarf or put on some mascara to cheer yourself up
Yoga nidra (deep yoga rest) – there are plenty of these available online. Listening to a yoga nidra is really helpful for relaxing your body and preparing it for sleep
If you have a post-surgery exercise programme do your exercises after taking your pain meds and REST completely after doing them. A cold pack is a good add-on pain relief tool (don’t leave it on for more than 20 mins at a time)
MOST IMPORTANTLY – LISTEN TO YOUR BODY
No amount of pushing will help you heal any faster, in fact it is likely to make healing take much longer. Sleep as much as you need and look after your sleep hygiene so your deep sleep is prioritised. As my Mum used to say ‘when you’re sleeping you’re healing’ – it’s just that Fibro people really need to work at it!
Please reach out if you need to talk about these tips further – you can book a 20 minutes complimentary call here
If you are overwhelmed and don’t know where to start – try these simple strategies as a starting point.
Take Care – I’m here for you!
Deb