While your surgeon has done his or her best to repair your body, this will likely have involved some element of “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. All sites of surgery are essentially damaged – with the best of intent. It is your job to help minimising the effects of that damage. Other, non-surgical treatment modalities (such as radiotherapy) also cause tissue damage. Again, it is your job to help minimise the effects of that, different kind, of damage.
Physiotherapy can be amazingly effective in this regard and we urge you to help yourself by making use of it. We explain how a fair range of exercises works. The main part of this section are video demonstrations of a range of generally useful exercises; addressing short and long term issues. We deal with exercises for surgical donor sites all over the body and with head & neck sites, as well as exercises to address radiotherapy-related problems (such as trismus, stiff neck or lymphoedema).
Any remaining or more specific problems that cannot be sufficiently addressed by the suggested exercises (plus some patience and perseverance) will best be dealt with in dedicated 1:1 sessions with a specialist physiotherapist. Different physiotherapists may prefer and recommend slightly different exercises.