Pain Management
Perioperative Pain Management

What is Perioperative Pain Management?

A multi-professional group including physicians, nurse practitioners, and registered nurses, will help manage pain after some surgical procedures. While the anesthesia and the surgical teams manage pain for procedures that are less painful, some surgeries that are more painful need the expertise of the perioperative pain management team.

We consult children before undergoing surgery, formulate pain management plans, and help manage their pain in the postoperative period. We work closely with integrative care, surgical services, nursing and occupational/physical therapy to aid in comprehensive postoperative recovery.

It is important to remember that pain coping starts way before surgery. Good sleep habits, healthy nutrition, physical fitness and anxiety reducing strategies like deep breathing exercises help prepare for pain coping and quicker return to normal activity after surgery.

A Culture of Managed Pain

Pain is unpleasant. But worse, it can interfere with recovery from surgery or illness, prevent normal activity and affect a child’s quality of life. One of the hardest things about pain is that even the best treatments do not guarantee that pain will be eliminated.

Patients and medical personnel may want there to be no pain after surgery, but trying to get rid of all pain can cause complications. Over-treating pain can be as bad as under-treating it. We strive to manage pain, keeping it at the lowest level that is safely possible, even if that means there is still a little pain left over.

We treat each patient’s pain according to her unique situation. The condition, patient’s quality of life and physicians’ plans all factor into our pain management plan. We work with physicians, your child and your family to ensure that we plan the most appropriate pain management strategy.