Thousands of Canadians undergo various
surgical procedures every year, so how can you best prepare?
Dr. Colin McCartney is an anesthesiologist at
Sunnybrook, and says the first step is having a dialogue.
Many patients see their anesthesiologist one to two weeks before their procedure
to make sure they are fit for surgery. As well, any medications or
supplements that could affect your risk of bleeding need to be reviewed.
The second aspect of the consultation is talking about
the type of anesthetic itself and discussing
types anesthetic with the patient and also the types of pain
management after surgery. He says local anesthetic techniques have become safer
and more precise for many types of surgery.
Now, we have started using much better methods of localizing nerves and placing local anesthetic successfully
around nerves and our success rates are much much higher. Not only that, the
discomfort of placing these techniques is much lower because we are making one needle
pass to a target without any trauma to
tissue compared to the past where there might have been multiple needle passes.
If you're a smoker, Dr. McCartney says the ideal
time to stop is as soon as possible, but ideally about six
weeks before surgery. That would allow
not only your body to clear
the blood I should say to clear itself of some fo the chemicals
associated with smoking like carbon monoxide for example. But it also allows a
degree of respiratory recovery of the lungs in themselves.
Even butting out two days before surgery will offer your body some benefits,
including an improved recovery time. When it comes to diet,
your health care team will tell you if you need to stop eating at a certain time
before your procedure. Constipation is a common side effect
after surgery, so at that point, choose foods that are rich in fibre
including fruits and vegetables. If you know you have major surgery
coming up and need to lose weight, Dr. McCartney says, even a lit bit helps.
There are complications of obesity
in terms of the heart, the lungs and
other aspects of the body as well that are all benefitted from even just a small amount
of weight loss. As always, make sure to connect with your health care team
if you have any questions. With Sunnyview, I'm Monica Matys.