Dr. Armin Tehrany, Orthopedic surgeon of Mount Sinai Hospital, explains how pain is subjective and varies from patient to patient but shares many methods he uses to alleviate pain after surgery.

Doctor Tehrany: Patients are usually very pleasantly surprised at how much pain they have to put up with. Pain is a very subjective thing. Some patients experience a lot of pain after a minor procedure. Some don't experience much pain after a major procedure. So, when a patient asks me, "How much pain and I going to be in? How long am I gonna be out of work? What kind of medicines do I need to take?" My answer essentially is, "It's subjective. It depends on the patient." I would say that patients are usually very pleasantly surprised at how much pain they have to put up with compared to what they've heard from other surgical procedures that have been done in the shoulder when the shoulder's been opened. It's also important for the patients to know about what the anesthesia is. For the most part my surgical procedures in the shoulder involve regional anesthesia, interscalene nerve block where my anesthesia team numbs the neck from here down so that the patients will hopefully not feel any pain at all for the first 12 to 18 hours or so. I also let them know that afterwards we usually put a pain-pump catheter that they keep in for two days that gives them anesthesia as well. Finally we add a cold pack and ice sleeve that goes through an electrical ice chest that they can use for a week or two for pain relief.