Here's a recent thread for another member that joined right before having surgery, the posts there should be helpful.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread162291.html

What are your symptoms & avg pain levels?
How long have you had symptoms?

Hope we can be of help.

If you put surgery or surgery tips into the search tool - you'll get plenty of results -just search the TOS forum only & choose threads or posts for results -
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/search.php

Here's the main TOS page for all recent threads-
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum24.html