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Incision burning pain

Can anyone please tell me why my surgical incision is burning.  It's been 11 days since I had a colon resection and it burned constantly and bad in the begininng and went away.  The burning is back but is just behind the scar and to the right.  What causes this and should I be concerned?
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82861 tn?1333453911
It's all part of the healing process UNLESS - the area around the incision is swollen and redness radiates outward from it accompanied by fever.  I've had some abdominal incisions that were completely painless, and others that burned and zinged or were numb for years.  It just depends on how many little nerves are in the area and how long it takes them to recover, if at all.

You want to see very localized redness on the incision itself and just a bit around it.  That indicates normal healing.  If you run a fever of 101 or higher, that indicates infection.  A low grade fever is more indicative of your body successfully healing itself, but still something to keep an eye on.

I had resection surgery too and know the recovery is no fun.  Are you able to eat comfortably now?  I pushed too much rich food at my guts too fast after surgery and ended up back in the hospital with obstruction-like symptoms.  Apparently peristalsis completely stopped.  My poor intestines had enjoyed one insult too many and sulked for several days.  I love the post-op instructions: diet as tolerated.  Well, you don't know what you can tolerate until you try it, and if you can't tolerate it you're in big trouble.  Right?  LOL!
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547368 tn?1440541785
Hi Pmweir,

Welcome to the Pain Management Forum. I am glad you found us but sorry to hear about your surgical pain.

The best suggestion I can give you is to consult with your physician. Usually burning pain is associated with nerve pain. When we have surgery they must also cut through the small nerve endings of our body. These take time to heal and can cause varying degrees of pain. On occasion larger nerves are irritated or damaged and they usually heal in time also. There are medications that can help ease nerve pain. Because this seems more localized and probably more skin related I am guessing that no nerve medications would help a great deal but again this is a question for your surgeon.

But a burning sensation can also be produced by other factors. Sometimes healing can produce some burning and an itching type of feeling. Again if your surgeon is not aware of your pain you should notify him/her. Because it did go subside and has now returned may all be part of the healing process.

I am far from and expert. Hopefully our members will have other opinions and suggestions. Please let us know how you are doing. We will look forward to hearing from you. We all learn from one another. I wish you the very best.

Take are,
~Tuck
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