1. Prevent Infection

Many patients do not keep all of their follow-up appointments. If you're feeling good and your wound is healing well, an appointment may seem like an unneeded expense and waste of time. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Your healthcare provider will want to know how you feel and if your incision is healing well, but they also might look for additional things you may not be privy to, such as signs of infection. Your medications may also be adjusted, so by all means: Don't skip your follow-up appointments..

2. Inspect Your Incision

Looking at your incision may not be your favorite thing to do, but it's important that you take a good look at your incision several times a day. Is the incision pink or red. Is there wound drainage and, if so, what color is it? Are the stitches or staples intact.
These questions are very important, and inspecting your incision will help you determine if your surgical site is continuing to heal or if it has become infected.

3. Care for Your Incision the Right Way

Believe it or not, many patients go overboard in trying to keep their incision clean. They want to scrub it and remove any scabs that form around it. Or they want to use alcohol or peroxide to keep the area free of germs. Unless your surgeon specifically instructs you to do any of these things, a gentle wash with soap and water is more than adequate.
It may not be pretty, but it is normal to have scabbing on your surgical staples. Removing them could slow the healing process. Similarly, soaking the incision can be harmful because it could weaken the incision line. For this reason, many surgeons recommend showers instead of baths following surgery and often forbid swimming during the early stages of recovery.

4. Drink and Eat Properly

Many people lose their appetite after having surgery. They may feel nauseated, constipated, or just don't feel hungry. But staying hydrated and eating a healthy diet after surgery can help promote healing, minimize common complications, and help you get past unwanted side effects of anesthesia.
You may need help modifying your diet, so don't be shy about asking for help. Your provider probably has plenty of practical ideas for you until your appetite returns.

5. Cough and Sneeze Carefully

Who knew that coughing and sneezing the way you've been doing it your entire life is't good enough after some surgeries. It turns out that if you have an abdominal incision, you can do some serious harm to your incision if you cough or sneeze the wrong way.
A new incision isn;t very strong, and a violent sneeze can cause a new surgical incision to open. It's crucial that you brace the incision, which means applying pressure to the area, while you cough or sneeze.You can do this with your hands or by covering the area with a pillow. This gentle pressure will help keep the sutures intact.
Bracing gets easier with practice it may even become second nature as you feel a cough coming on. Just don't try to stifle a cough. Coughing helps prevent pneumonia.

6. Know When To Go To the ER

Your post-op instructions should spell out the warning signs you should heed before seeking emergency help. But in general, if you're bleeding, having trouble breathing, can't keep food/water down, cannot urinate, or you have obvious signs of infection, you need to see a healthcare provider. And if you can't reach your surgeon, your primary care healthcare provider or the emergency room should be your next stop.
Your provider would undoubtedly agree: It's wise to err on the side of being cautious while you're recovering from surgery.

7. Control Your Pain

Keeping pain under control after surgery is crucial. Some patients resist the idea, either because they fear they'll get hooked on it, they consider medication a sign of weakness, or they don't like how they feel after taking prescription drugs.
If you can relate, look at it this way: If you're in too much pain to cough, you put yourself at risk for pneumonia. And if you're in too much pain to walk, you're at risk for blood clots and pneumonia. Keeping your pain at a tolerable level (no pain may be an unreasonable goal) will keep your recovery process moving along as it should.
Two other tips may help: Wash down your pain medication with ample fluid; meds can lead to dehydration and constipation, and water will ease digestion. And take your medication regularly, as prescribed. You'll stay ahead of the pain (instead of "chasing" it) and you'll probably sleep better, too. Sleep promotes healing.

8. Get Moving

Walking after surgery is one of the most important things you can do for your recovery. A quick walk around your home every hour or two can help prevent serious complications like deep vein thrombosis (DVT) (a blood clot) and pneumonia.
Walking is a gentle way to return to physical activity. It can also hasten your return to all of your normal activities.

Post Surgical Prevention:

Infectious disease may be an unavoidable fact of life, but there are many strategies available to help us protect ourselves from infection and to treat a disease once it has developed.

Vaccines and Medicines
Medicines have existed in human society probably as long as sickness itself. However, with the advent of the modern pharmaceutical industry, biochemical approaches to preventing and treating disease have acquired a new level of prominence in the evolving relationship between microbes and their human hosts.

Vaccines:
A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize it as foreign, destroy it, and ”remember” it, so that the immune system can more easily identify and destroy any of these microorganisms that it encounters later. The body’s immune system responds to vaccines as if they contain an actual pathogen, even though the vaccine itself is not capable of causing disease. Because vaccines are widely used in the United States, many once-common diseases—polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, mumps, tetanus, and certain forms of meningitis—are now rare or well controlled.
Vaccinated people produce antibodies that neutralize a disease-causing virus or bacterium. They are much less likely to become infected and transmit those germs to others. Even people who have not been vaccinated may be protected by the immunity of the “herd,” because the vaccinated people around them are not getting sick or transmitting the infection. The higher the proportion of vaccinated people in a community, the lower the likelihood that a susceptible person will come into contact with an infectious individual—leading to greater herd immunity.

Antibiotics and Antivirals:
Antibiotics are powerful medicines that fight bacterial infections. They either kill bacteria or stop them from reproducing, allowing the body's natural defenses to eliminate the pathogens. Used properly, antibiotics can save lives. But growing antibiotic resistance is curbing the effectiveness of these drugs. Taking an antibiotic as directed, even after symptoms disappear, is key to curing an infection and preventing the development of resistant bacteria.
Antibiotics don't work against viral infections such as colds or the flu. In those cases, antiviral drugs, which fight infection either by inhibiting a virus’s ability to reproduce or by strengthening the body’s immune response to the infection, are used. There are several different classes of drugs in the antiviral family, and each is used for specific kinds of viral infections. (Unlike antibacterial drugs, which may cover a wide spectrum of pathogens, antiviral medications are used to treat a narrower range of organisms.) Antiviral drugs are now available to treat a number of viruses, including influenza, HIV, herpes, and hepatitis B. Like bacteria, viruses mutate over time and develop resistance to antiviral drugs.