What Do Soft Tissue Damage and Male Orthopedic Surgeons Have in Common?

In the reading the Huffington Post article entitled Orthopedic Surgery: Women on the Rise in a Male-Dominated Field, I was struck by the fact that only 4.3 percent of board-certified orthopedic surgeons are female.  As the author points out, the reasons for such gender disparity are that a certain "amount of physical force is required to maneuver fractured or dislocated bones and joints back into place".  She goes on to say that is changing due an increased use in robots and other medical devices. 

That is is not, however, what caught my eye.  It is the simple fact that physical force is being used to move something around inside the body.  Or that such strain is require to reset our bones, joints, and ligaments.  The thought of it simply makes me cringe.  But it makes sense, given what aches and pains I have felt following my hip fracture surgery.  I now know they did a heck of a lot more than just reatttach two pieces of bone with three screws.

Coincidentally, my reading of this article quickly was shortly after my reading of a similar story to  mine when another gentleman had a hip fracture caused by a bike accident.  In this story he tells of his long struggle to heal and all the different types of treatment he has required to stop the pain and make himself healthy.  In one poignant part of the story, he states, that amount amount of soft tissue damage, or creation of scar tissue - caused by fixing a hip fracture or going through knee replacement surgery - simply cannot be understated.  In other words, our muscles, tendons, fascia, and nerves all take a beating when they are in there fixing our broken bones.

So what can we do about it?  What does all this mean for our recovery?  Short of not having the surgery, it means that we need to include soft tissue repair as part of our recovery plan. 

Soft tissue repair comes in many forms and I suggest you use them all to one degree or another. The most obvious is the use of Advil or any other anti-inflammatory.  But anti-inflammatories should be used on a limited basis due their side effects. 

Thus several other safer choices should be considered:

• Heat and Ice.  To promote blood flow to the area.
• Massage.  Ideally this would be with a proper massage therapist with experience in treating your specific injury.  But massage therapists are not cheap.  A less expensive, do-it-yourself approach would be to purchase a foam roll.  These can be be used on all parts of the body to apply pressure and relief the damaged area. 
• Proper Vitamin Intake.  Vitamins E, K, and C promote collagen that helps heal damaged tissue.

What ever you choose, or what ever works for you, don't forget that not matter how successful the surgery that the muscles and its surround components need treatment beyond just gaining strength.  They need to heal because in all types of surgeries sustain this collateral damage and failing to treat it will simply also pain and discomfort to linger.