Why can you get long term pain following anterior resection?

Answer 1

Long term pain following apparently successful surgeries isn't totally understood, but it's believed that the injured nerve pathways keep firing signals to the brain even after the injury is repaired. It's also important (as I found out the hard way) to never discount the possibility that the surgery wasn't performed as well as it could've been either. I've lost 10 years of my life to date in extreme pain because of the wrong belief that my first 2 spinal surgeries were done properly.

Injured nerves, even if they do heal, heal differently for each person. It depends entirely on your physical condition at the time, the extent of the injury, success of the repair, and subsequent therapy to regain use. All are variables in reducing the possibility of long term pain of any type.

It's important also to understand the psychological effect that pain has on us. In order to heal faster, we need to exercise the area of injury, and that in itself causes pain. The brain tells us to stop doing activity that causes the pain, but by doing so the healed area can't heal faster or properly. This is one reason why post-surgical patients are put into physical therapy as soon as they're able to do so. I myself, even knowing this fact, still have a difficult time forcing myself to do any physical activity that causes pain because of the extreme pain and trauma that I've been through over the years. The mental aspect of therapy cannot be underestimated.

Understanding your injury, repair, healing process, and the various therapies involved in recovery will help your body recover faster and hopefully in time reduce your pain. Since corrective surgery fixed the major cause of my pain 3 years ago, my pain levels are the lowest they've been in years, but nerve damage is likely to be permanent after so long. Still, I'm always encouraged by the fact that the pain is a lot less than it used to be, and that there's at least a chance they'll heal even more down the road.