Boost Your Nutrition
Nutrition plays a tremendous role in your surgical outcome. In fact, it is the biggest determinant in your surgical outcome. Processed food is very, very common. A part of our diets in daily lives. Fast food. All of those things influence blood sugar, influence inflammation, chronic inflammation in your body. They contribute to insulin resistance. They contribute to obesity, all of those factors and all of those things have a very negative impact on surgical outcomes. So nutrition really is very, very important leading up to surgery. It's never too late to make changes and to eliminate those processed foods. The fast foods, those refined carbohydrates from your diet. Even a week, two weeks before surgery will help to give you a better surgical outcome.
Watch the Sugar
Number two, sugar. Glycemic control. What we talk about, blood sugar control, going into surgery, very, very important. Hyperglycemia or elevated blood sugar during surgery leads to double the risk of surgical infections. Avoiding the foods with added sugar will significantly improve your glucose or your blood sugar control, going into surgery. Very, very important. Elevated blood sugar can also lead to inflammation and inflammation inhibit surgical healing.
Avoid Tobacco
Tobacco smoking significantly increases your chance of complications during surgery. It inhibits wound healing and can increase your chance of complications during anesthesia. Things such as pneumonia, bronchitis can happen more frequently in smokers. So you really want to try to quit smoking. That would be the best thing to do before surgery or at least decrease your smoking in the weeks leading up to surgery.
Hydrate
Hydration is very important going into surgery. Well hydrated patients have better outcomes than patients that aren't hydrated. And you really want to think of surgery as, it's like running a marathon. Your body is under a tremendous amount of stress, even for minor surgeries. And during that time, you're burning a lot of water as your body is working to increase those energy demands of surgery. You really want to be as hydrated as possible. You want to be drinking a lot of water leading up to surgery. You want to eliminate things like alcohol and caffeine as much as possible in the days leading up to surgery.
Review Your Medications
There are some medications that you may be taking that can thin your blood. Things such as Warfarin or Aspirin. You need to consult with your surgeon to see when or how far in advance answer the surgery, you should stop taking those medicines. There are some herbal medications in vitamins, nutritional supplements, such as Echinacea, St. John's wort, Kava. These can also thin the blood. So you also want to check with your surgeon to run your list of nutritional supplements and make sure they don't need to be stopped before surgery. On the flip side, there are some medications that you want to continue up until the surgery and may even want to take with a small sip of water the morning of surgery.
One thing I haven't mentioned is a positive attitude. Positive attitude going into surgery is very important in determining having a good outcome from surgery. People with positive attitudes, there is no doubt they do better.
You really want to start taking the steps to prepare from surgery as far in advance as possible. At least two weeks would be a minimum, but as soon as you think you may need to have surgery, you really want to start making some of those changes.
Possible Complications
There are complications that can occur if you're not adequately prepared for surgery. Things such as wound infections can be increased, wound healing time can be decreased and the risk of anesthesia related complications, such as pneumonia and bronchitis, can be significantly increased if you're not well prepared going into surgery.
In my own practice, I have seen people who are well prepared for surgery. They have better surgical outcomes than people who aren't prepared.
