Shocked about your sudden weight gain after the surgery you had recently? Don`t worry, you are not alone!!
After surgery, many people put on weight all of a sudden and would find it difficult. This is called edema or water retention and is very common. The plasma protein redistribution would lead to the accumulation of the fluid between the tissues. The truth is that this water retention by the body after surgery is the body`s own response to the trauma. This post operative edema could be there for 6 weeks also in the patients/
It is true that a surgery can be nerve wracking for us due to the medicines we take, effort we put in handling the pain and having weight gain etc. These would make the recovery a bit difficult.
Various factors that would lead to weight gain post surgery are
Fluid retention:
It is worthy to note here that the post operative edema or fluid retention after the surgery is one common reason for us to gain weight after the surgical procedure. In an attempt to reduce the inflammation, our body would retain more fluids. This would help in fast healing. It is believed that the intravenous fluids given while surgery could be the reason.
Medication:
Doctors prescribe few medicines for the patients so that they would recover faster. Truth is that these medicines could affect the way the body would process nutrients. This would lead to weight gain. The bitter fact is that the medicines taken for speedy recovery would cause weight gain as side effect
Stress:
As the surgery would be a stressful experience for the patients, stress hormones like cortisol would get released. Both physical as well as psychological stress could lead to hormonal abnormalities. The kidney functions would get disrupted by stress and this could lead to water retention. Point to be noted is that the body levels of anti diuretic hormone or ADH could get increased.
Rest:
Though complete bed rest is recommended by the doctors to the patients who are operated on, the patients must engage in some physical activity after the surgery. The body`s basal metabolic rate or BMR would get slowed down due to prolonged rest. This could lead to weight gain.
Comfort food intake:
It is noteworthy that the patients` eating habits would get affected due to pain, nausea and discomfort after the surgery. Recovery post surgery could be unpleasasant and stressful. To get through this period of pain and discomfort, many of us consume comfort foods, high sugary foods and high fat content foods etc. After the recovery, the patient must stop indulging in these comfort foods and turn to a more balanced diet. If not, the patient would have weight gain.