As Medicine Advances, Recovery Times Decrease

(SALEM, Ore.) - In the last few years, medical tech has advanced at lightning speed. Every day, new procedures and techniques are coming out to treat everything from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) to prostate cancer.

In the past, both major and minor procedures required relatively long recovery times. Fortunately, that trend is beginning to reverse.

As researchers discover new ways to treat patients, these new surgeries, treatments, and procedures become centered on patient comfort and care. This, in turn, leads to decreased recovery times.

So, let’s take a look at a few different procedures and how their recovery times have gone down in recent years.

Bunion Surgery

It may not qualify as a “serious” procedure, but bunion surgery can help people get rid of painful and unsightly formations on their toes. In the past, recovery times after bunion surgery could take as long as six weeks.

During this time, patients needed to use crutches or even wheelchairs to get around comfortably. Nowadays, the bunion surgery recovery time has been greatly reduced, with many patients getting back on their feet in a matter of minutes!

Vasectomy

A vasectomy is a procedure for men who are sure that they do not want to cause a pregnancy in the future. In the early days of the procedure, recovery times could take as long as a month.

Now, post-vasectomy patients are back on their feet in just a few days — with minimal pain. Additionally, vasectomies can be reversed in case the patient changes their mind later on.

Appendectomy

An appendectomy refers to the process of removing the appendix. This procedure is usually done when a patient experiences acute appendicitis. Before minimally-invasive surgeries became common practice, an appendectomy would require a long recovery time.

More specifically, patients would need to be bed-ridden for at least a week and would experience further pain and difficulty moving in the weeks after. Today, appendectomy patients can be out and about in just a few days!

Arthroscopic Surgery

Surgeries to the hands have come a long way in recent years. Nowadays, arthroscopic surgery is most often minimally-invasive. This means that it is treated as an outpatient procedure, with patients leaving the surgery with full (or near full) function of their hands.

Arthroscopic surgeries are most common when treating conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome. However, they can apply to a wide range of hand-related issues.

Gastric Bypass Surgery

Finally, gastric bypass surgery is a popular procedure that separates the stomach into two distinct parts. It is meant to help overweight or obese patients lose weight. When the surgery first came into existence, recovery times were generally a month or longer.

With today’s medical technology, patients can be fully recovered from gastric bypass surgery in as little as two weeks!

Conclusion

Medicine has come a long way in the last few years. Thanks to minimally-invasive surgeries and even robotic surgeons, patients now experience less pain and shorter recovery times. It will be exciting to see how medicine advances even further in the years to come!