Healing Well After Breast Surgery

Healing quickly after breast surgery depends on supporting the natural processes of healing in your body.

Healing begins before surgery. Recovery from surgery is quicker in persons who have more muscle mass. This does not require going to a gym or lifting weights. It is actually much easier. Walking is a good test of how well you are prepared for surgery. If you can walk a couple of miles every day for the week before surgery, you will recover faster. The reason for this is that your breathing muscles will be conditioned to work better for you as you recover from surgery.

During surgery, it is important that the anesthesiologist and your surgeon take steps to keep you warm. If you get cold during surgery, your risk of infection increases. For an operation that lasts less than an hour, blankets are usually adequate. However, if your surgery will last more that one hour they should take active steps to keep your body temperature from dropping. Most commonly, this is done with a special warming blanket that looks like an air mattress that blows warm air on your skin.

After surgery, it is important to get out of bed as soon as you are able. Inactivity increases your risk of pneumonia and blood clots. Special breathing exercises, machines that squeeze your legs, and drugs that stop blood clots can help; but nothing works as well a standing on your own feet. Standing also helps you recover your strength. Actually, it turns out that much of recovering from surgery is actually recovering from losing muscle strength after surgery, specifically, the muscle loss that happens very fast if you simply lie in bed. We don’t think about the muscles that help us stand up, but they get weak very fast if you lie in bed; and the best way to keep them strong is to use them by standing up. I tell patients that they gain more by standing for a few minutes and then sleeping for two hours than by sitting in a chair for the same two hours.

Keep yourself well hydrated. Your body needs to send extra blood flow into an area that is healing. The extra blood flow is what makes the skin pink around your surgical incision (or any cut) while it heals. If you are dehydrated, there will be less fluid in your blood, the volume of your blood will shrink, and your body will have less blood to send to the area that is healing. Keep yourself well hydrated before surgery by drinking liquids until 6 or 8 hours before your surgery (your anesthesiologist will tell you how many hours before surgery you should stop drinking fluid); and drink lots of liquids in the first several weeks after surgery.

Feed yourself protein after surgery. Your body has a job to do – to heal you; and it will try to heal itself whether you feed yourself or not. If you feed yourself enough protein, your body will use the protein that you eat to heal your incisions. If you do not eat enough protein, your body will get protein where it can. Unless you are starved, the one place your body can always get protein is from your muscles. If you do not eat enough protein, your body will cannibalize your own muscles for the protein it needs. Usually, you need at last 50 grams of protein each day to heal optimally.

Use vitamins cautiously. Collagen is the protein or tough stuff that holds us together and makes our wounds heal. Your body needs Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and Zinc to make collagen. You cannot store Vitamin C, so you need a lot every day while you are healing. Most people have some stored Vitamin A, but if they have big surgery, they may use up their body’s supply. Zinc is lost in the fluids that drain from wounds, so if you have drain tubes, you may need to replace zinc. These vitamins are necessary. Vitamin E, however, is not a necessary factor in healing from surgery, and there is laboratory evidence that Vitamin E can interfere with healing. After surgery, it is better to stick with Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and Zinc. Note: the exception on Vitamin E is that the small amount in most multi-vitamin pills is safe.