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Music as a pain reliever, post-op

Mar 26, 2025

Tomorrow will mark three weeks since I had a total knee replacement.

I've weaned myself off of narcotics for pain relief, yet I still experience pain. I continue to take Tylenol and gabapentin. The biggest challenge is pain at night, making sleeping for consecutive hours difficult.

Well, last night, after waking at around 1:00am, I decided to try something different. I put on my headphones and started listening to music.

One of the things I am missing these days is going to the gym several times a week. So, the playlist that I fired up was my "workout" playlist.

What I found remarkable was that the music provided this amazing distraction from the pain.

What is interesting, and this is something I've observed before, is that the areas of our body where we place our attention or concentration are often dictated by discomfort that we may be feeling in those areas.

So, it seems that by listening to music, and engaging the sense of hearing, provides a way to route around the pain sensation, replacing it with a far more positive experience.

So, after last night's discovery, I did a little digging. Oddly enough, there is plenty of research on this topic. Here are just a few examples:

As for what's included in my "workout" playlist, it's a mix of songs that I have enjoyed over the years. Here's the entire playlist (with links to YouTube videos):