Abdominal Pain After Surgery: Second Opinion & Rehab

Question
Hi!
I was wondering if you might be able to give me a second opinion on what a physical therapist has told me. I have a complex medical hystory of necrotising faciitis in my abdomen and a lot of tissue involving my abdominal wall had to be removed. Anyway, it is now a year later and I am still having chronic pain in my abdomen with my daily activities that have made most of what I do very, very difficult. My physical therapist has a technique where he uses ultrasound to watch muscle contractions and has found that my transverse abdominals are not functioning independantly of my obliques. He says there are probably held together by scar tissue, etc. He is having me lay on my back and try to lift my legs and when I do my obliques do all of the work in lifting my knee up. He says my obliques shouldn't be contracting at all and that my transverse abdominals should be doing all the work when I do that. Is that correct? Also, would this phenomenom cause the pain I am describing? It is an aching pain down my side between my ribs and hip bones and also a very sharp pain just to the right of my belly button that gets much, much worse throughout the day. Thank you for any help/direction you can offer.

Answer
Hi Jill,

Yep that sounds about right. Massage can be used to break down scar tissue, but not necessarily get rid of it ccompletly. Between massage, proper stretching and physio you should be able to get mostly back to normal. Although with chronic pain it usually never fully goes away.

Zira