@ab6540183 Alfred, I did not take pain medications either before or after my spine surgery. I had some basic ibuprofen after a very painful epidural spine injection, and nothing took that pain away or touched it (not even a steroid dose pack), and every time I moved it flared up. The best I could do was prop myself up on pillows and lie down and relax and try not to move. There was no point in getting upset over something I could not control. Gradually over time, as the steroid injection dissipated it got better, but that took a couple months with stabbing electrical burning pain right into my dominant hand.

To manage my fear and pain, I did exactly what I recommended to you with the music and breathing therapy. The spine injection was the most pain I had ever endured in my life, far greater than my broken ankle and ankle fixation surgery or spine surgery. At the time of the spine injection, I was convulsing with pain and close to passing out when they reminded me to breathe because the first thing you do in severe pain is hold your breath. It was my breathing & music technique that I had practiced so much that saved me from passing out and I was able to stay in control of my emotions in spite of being in pain. When anger and fear come into play, it escalates pain a lot. I also knew that my emotional visceral reaction to pain was learned in my past experiences, and that it was up to me to "unlearn" that response.

The day I had spine surgery, they gave me some pain pills afterward in the hospital and it just nauseated me, and didn't take all the pain away anyway. I didn't think the pain was that bad, so I didn't take any more and I found I could manage just fine even though I had some pain. It wasn't horrible, and I knew that it was healing pain or "Good pain" and that I was on the mend.

It would be good if you could get a counselor involved with helping you.... someone you can talk to in person to help re-frame how you are thinking about all of this. I would not let anyone do any physical manipulations or exercises with you. At this point, you need to wait to see the surgeon and to follow advice until then. I'm sorry, I don't have any answers other than telling you what worked for me, and believe me, I had to come a very long way to unravel my fears of pain that had been life long, but I did, and it changed my life.

If you really want this, keep working at it. You may not notice huge changes at first because you are focusing on the pain and not the pleasant things to distract yourself. You have to address whatever belief you have about this pain and your injuries to get past this, and that is where a counselor can help. I had to do that too because my spine problem was caused by someone else in a traffic accident. If I had carried a lot of anger around about that, it would affect me too. You have to forgive to get past the anger and that is something to do because it will help you feel better.

Yes, I agree with you to avoid physiotherapy now. I do not know the source of your pain and what your outcome will be. I didn't know what my outcome would be either, and I just did the best I could to follow advice from the surgeon and physical therapist, and I believed that I would get better. There is real power in that.