How to Prepare Your Body for Surgery: Protein, Prehab and the 5 Days That Change Your Recovery | Dr. Rebecca Knackstedt
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How can prehabilitation reduce surgical complications and improve recovery?
sleep and stress and social support there are evidence-based things that we can be doing to help patients heal there are studies showing that if you invest in prehabilitation you actually save money on that patient avoiding complications prolonged hospital stays emergency room visits so it's once again a shift from this reactionary type health care to preventative health care
We know that this improves patient outcomes, both physically but also mentally. Why is it not standard of care?
A lot of challenges that need to be overcome before this is standard of care. But you're hopeful. I'm hopeful. What's terrifying is that I'm seeing more and more young women, premenopausal women in my clinic with a diagnosis of breast cancer. There are certainly things that we know increase your risk of breast cancer. So things like BMI, family history genetic predispositions but one of the biggest things that i talk to patients about is
rebecca Knackstedt she's a plastic and reconstruction microsurgeon who occupies an unusual position in academic medicine she is simultaneously a duke faculty surgeon operating on breast cancer patients, an MD-PhD researcher, and a functional medicine provider, which we're going to talk about, whose primary research interest is, get this, surgical prehabilitation with nutrition, supplementation, and exercise. This combination, as you know, is rare. She's built her research career on the argument that those weeks, pre-surgical and probably also post-surgical, are really the intersection of intervention. And the patients have far more influence over their surgical outcomes than they've been told. Welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
Surgery typically we think about as very invasive and a heavy burden to the patient. We don't really think about before surgery, but you've spent your career and obviously as you continue your career with a different frame of reference that pre-surgical intervention, meaning before surgery, what patients do before influences outcomes after.
Yeah, it's such an important topic and it's something that patients are not aware of, surgeons aren't aware of. It's a conversation that all patients should be having with their surgeons and it's conversations that aren't happening.
Also, it's not really taught about. And you did. Tell us a little bit about your training.
So I did my plastic surgery residency at Cleveland Clinic, and I did a microsurgery fellowship as well. And while I was there, I was doing research with the functional medicine department looking at a study in prehabilitation. And while I was doing it, I decided to become certified. So I took the classes. I did the exam. And that process just really solidified my desire and goal to view patients holistically. And as a surgeon, think about all of the aspects of my patients that are going to impact their surgical outcomes apart from just what I do as a surgeon.
The real unique component here is for the audience, when they hear functional medicine, if you Google functional medicine, you see people that are not qualified that are putting on their website or putting on various social media, functional medicine with the word medicine practitioner.
Right.
I would love, because again, we have lots of academics that listen to the show. I'd love for you to explain what functional medicine is, how that plays a role into your thinking. Because again, it's wonderful when someone who comes from a traditional academic institution like Duke or Cleveland Clinic, both top tier, are interfacing with this idea of functional medicine.
Functional medicine really is just the belief that all aspects of health and wellness are interconnected. You can't just treat someone's blood pressure with a medicine. You should think about their diet and their exercise and their sleep and their stress because those things impact their blood pressure. So functional medicine is just a more holistic look at patients. The challenge of functional medicine, what you were alluding to, is that a lot of different providers can become certified in functional medicine.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How can prehabilitation reduce surgical complications and improve recovery?
0:00–9:40
2
What exercises should you do before surgery to prepare for recovery?
9:40–13:09
3
How do hormones and breast cancer risk affect treatment decisions?
13:09–25:10
4
Why is early movement important, and which tests matter before surgery?
25:10–35:30
5
How much protein should you eat before surgery, and which supplements are safe?
35:30–46:51
6
How can you prepare mentally for surgery and manage anxiety during recovery?
46:51–52:21
7
Can red light therapy, hyperbaric oxygen, and wound vacs help surgical healing?
52:21–1:05:44
8
How do muscle reserves, carb loading, and five days of prehab support recovery?
1:05:44–1:17:42
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show
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