Originally Posted by
hockeyteeth
I'm curious why it is so beneficial to minimize sensation of pain. I would have assumed the pain keeps you from exceeding your damaged body's capabilities during healing to avoid exacerbating the injury. What's the rationale here?
There's a fine line here. While pain does help prevent you from additional injury, it can also prevent you from mobilizing the joint, which can lead to range of motion issues. Having worked in in-patient orthopedics, we would give patients pain medication prior to their physical therapy sessions to help prevent these problems.
OP: are you doing any physical therapy? I would contact the MD in any case, as increased pain after surgery can be a sign of a problem.