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This morning was the two-week followup conversation with my inguinal hernia surgeon. He checked the incision, the tapes, the swelling and felt for any hernia when I coughed. Everything was as near perfect as we could hope for, and he was a little surprised that I hadn’t used any of the pain pills he prescribed for me, or that I claimed that I never needed them. I said that I would rather feel a little tolerable pain when I did something that irritated the surgery site and then I wouldn’t do that action again. If I were on pain-suppressing medications I might do things that were counterproductive to the wound’s healing.

The only external method of pain suppression was placing an ice pack on the surgery site with a layer of cloth to slow the heat transfer from ice to skin, but I wasn’t thinking of it as pain suppression but as a swelling control. Even two weeks after the surgery there is still swelling a half-inch high and one inch wide along the cut, but there is no pain even when I poke it moderately with my finger tip. One easy tip to follow before any surgery is to purchase some oral anesthetic spray like Chloraseptic and keep it with you at all times. When you are about to cough or sneeze, spray a little on the tickling spot and maybe you won’t cough. When you have incisions they will really hurt when you cough.

I feel okay today but my inguinal hernia surgeon said to expect to feel tired for several more weeks while the healing is taking place.