Do you have a surgical scar that’s causing you problems?
Is a surgical scar sensitive or painful to touch?
Are you having issues with a scar months or even years later?
Are you struggling to heal emotionally after surgery?
Healing after surgery—whether planned or emergency—is not just about physical recovery.
The emotional and mental impact of the experience is just as important for long-term healing.
Common Issues with Surgical Scars
It is not uncommon to experience issues and problems with scar tissue, even long after the initial healing.
With a new scar this may include:
- Numbness along the scar, in patches or surrounding areas
- Sensitivity on or around the scar
- Pain when you touch it, months or even years later.
- Tightness and tension patterns caused by the scar
- Internal scarring, which can lead to issues later in life.
Sometimes, the effects of surgery don’t appear until much later, making it easy to overlook the scar as a contributing factor.
How Scar Tissue Affects the Body Over Time
Scar tissue differs from healthy skin and connective tissue. It lacks the same flexibility and elasticity, which can result in:
- Changes in posture as scar tissue tightens over time
- Altered movement patterns due to tissue tension and restricted tissue flexibility
- Disruptions in internal structures from internal adhesions, which can contribute to digestive issues or changes in breathing patterns.
Even a small keyhole scar can have far-reaching effects.
For example, one client experienced recurring hip pain that was the result of their body compensating after lung surgery from two years before. Another client was experiencing back pain was due to a 40 year old appendix scar.
Even if a scar isn’t painful, it can still be affecting the body in ways that aren’t immediately obvious.
How ScarWork Therapy Can Help After Surgery
The good news is that these physical issues from surgery can be helped with ScarWork therapy.
If it’s a new scar that’s causing you problems, this gentle treatment can help optimise the scar healing. When it comes to older scars, ScarWork and other modalities can help reduce the impact of the changes in tissue tension and restrictions throughout the body.
But the physical aspect of healing and recovery is only one part of the picture. Whether your symptoms began soon after the operation or years down the line, there may be more support your body needs to help it fully heal, especially when there are mental and emotional factors involved..
The Whole-Person Impact of Surgery Scars
Surgery affects more than just the physical body, there is the emotional and mental stress of the event to manage and heal from too.
If the body-mind hasn’t been able to heal from the mental and emotional impact of surgery, physical healing can be delayed.
The body may become ‘stuck’ in a stress cycle about the event. You may feel disconnected from the operation site and your body as a whole, struggle to fully move on from the event, or experience lingering stress responses that keep the body in a state of tension.
All these factors can prevent the body fully healing physically, so scar tissue sensitivity and inflammation continue long after the surgery.
When we take a holistic approach to surgical scar recovery, you can reach a more complete healing, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Some of the issues this approach can help include:
Physical Issues After Surgery
- Scar is tender to touch
- Tightness around the scar
- Numbness
- Issues related to internal scar tissue – this can range from digestive issues or recurring injuries even years later due to internal restrictions, such as my client with the hip pain after her lung surgery.
- Feeling out of balance or out of alignment / disconnected
Mental Impact Of Surgery
- Negative self-talk about the surgery or how you relate to or feel about the scar
- Self-conscious about your scar – how it looks, where it is on your body…
- Anger or frustration towards yourself for needing surgery
- Difficulty processing what has happened
- Memory loss related to the event – or fear of revisiting it in your mind.
Emotional Impact
- Unable to connect with the surgery site – can’t face touching or looking at it.
- Feel disconnected with yourself and/pr the surgery site
- Can’t look at the area in the mirror
- Avoidance talking about the event
- Can’t shake off the shock or stress of the operation
Spiritual Impact
- Feeling a loss of wholeness
- Struggling with a sense of self
- Loss of a sense of direction in life
Difficulty accepting life after surgery – “Who am I now?”
Your body is a deeply interconnected whole, not just separate systems working in isolation. If you experience any negative effects after surgery in one area, it’s natural for the rest of your body to feel the impact too.
Addressing all aspects of healing is essential for complete recovery.
For example, if you are dealing with physical issues post-surgery that will affect how you relate to that area of your body mentally and emotionally. It will also be causing a low level of chronic stress that reduces your body’s natural healing capabilities.
So often, not just with surgery, an unresolving or recurring physical issue has an emotional component that needs to be resolved to allow the physical body to heal.
So, if your body is stuck in the stress of the event, or you are struggling to love your body again or accept the new version of you, it will keep your physical body in a stress state and prevent it from full healing.
A Blended Approach to Resolving Surgical Scar Issues
A whole-person approach considers all aspects of healing after surgery—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. To find YOU again and help you heal completely. To be able to love all of you again and find a new way forward.
My approach to post-surgery care combines a blend of mind-body therapies. In a session we may use any of the following methods in a Blended Approach.
A gentle hands-on therapy that helps optimise scar tissue from the surface down.
Using light touch, it helps improve the appearance and quality of the scar. It can help with numbness, reduce sensitivity, unwanted tension surrounding the surgery site.
A gentle whole-body therapy that helps to release any unwanted tension.
It can also help to gently release any tissue memory or emotional strain from the event. This allows the body to rebalance and be better able to self-regulate and self-heal
This modality helps to release restrictions around the internal structures of the body. Whilst it can work quite deeply into the body it uses a light and gentle touch.
Visceral Manipulation can aid the body in adjusting to any internal scarring or changes as a result of the surgery.
a Process that helps with the emotional and mental impact. Using muscle testing we can have a conversation with your subconscious mind, the place where your belief system and memories are stored.
This can be used to release any stress still associated with the surgery and/or create any subconscious changes that would help with your overall healing and recovery.
a holistic coaching approach where we may be drawn to using certain processes that help you reconnect with yourself and come to a place of peace. It can help you to find your way forward after surgery and learn to love yourself and your body again.
These beautiful flower remedies help rebalance your emotions and support overall well-being.
It’s Never Too Late to Heal
Whilst having treatment early on is preferable (once the scar has healed and any scabbing is gone) no matter how old a scar is, positive improvements can always be made in how a scar feels and functions.
Especially with a whole person approach because it ensures all aspects of how the operation/surgery have impacted you are taken into consideration.
If you’re ready to heal fully—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually—let’s talk.
Book a Clarification Call and I can answer any questions you have, or Learn More About My Blended Approach.
Appointments are available from our home clinic near Martock, Somerset, UK.
