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Pain from chemotherapy Chronic pain after surgery |
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Chronic pain after surgery (chronic post-surgical pain) is pain that continues at the surgical site after the usual period of recovery. This pain is caused by injury to the nerves in the area of surgery. It may occur after a mastectomy (removal of a breast) or a thoracotomy (surgery in the chest) as well as other surgical procedures. Chronic post-surgical pain may also develop weeks or months after the surgery. In these cases, scar tissue is probably responsible for the nerve injury.
Chronic pain can also follow an amputation (removal of a body part like an arm or leg). Nerve injury that results from amputation may cause what's known as "phantom" pain: nerve pain that feels like it's located in the part of the body that has been removed.
Nerve pain, including chronic post-surgical pain, often responds poorly to narcotic (opioid) pain relievers. If you have nerve pain, you may need other medications for pain (adjuvant analgesics).
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