This is usally due to the swelling and the surgery itself as the body sets off a cascade of inflammatory events after a surgery is done. The first few days after surgery are the worst, with patients frequently reporting pain that keeps them from sleeping and inability to be comfortable. It is important to look at pain as a function of time, as well as the different types of pain you may experience. In our experience we like to go with percentages rather than pain scores. The pain after knee replacement is highly variable. Do not fear, the saying two steps forward one step back is the case in some situations, but it is key to remember that long term you are moving forward to a successful outcome. Physical therapy will be there as will our physicians, but a clear understanding that the set backs encountered are common can be disheartening. Many patients do experience significant relief early on, however, it is not uncommon to regress along the way. So when we hear these expectations prior to surgery, we know we need to set the expectations correctly so you can understand your expected pain levels, your travel (by car and/or air), and your ability to run marathons- a little bit longer than that 2 week window our most ambitious patients ask for. Our surgeons frequently hear how they want to have no pain, fly over the Atlantic ocean to visit Paris and London the week after surgery and, yes, we've heard it before, run a marathon 2 weeks later. Expectations.Īs we begin our journey into knee replacements, it is imperative to define expectations prior to surgery. We now want to share our experiences with you, our patients, to help you recover safer, faster and with the comfort of mind knowing that we have listened to our patients and are using their experiences with the recovery process to guide you in your recovery!Įxpectations. We shifted our practice from routinely keeping patients overnight to nearly exclusively outpatient total joint replacement. Rather than sit back, our specialists advanced into the same-day go home total knee replacement and extended recovery (23 hour stay) protocols that are the mainstay of our practice today.Īs of March 2020 and as COVID-19 pandemic developed in the United States, we listened to our patients who needed joint replacements but did not want to recover in the hospital setting. Insurances have since cut short some of these times by reducing payments to hospitals and encouraged surgeons to reduce their length of stay in the hospital and the orthopedic surgeons had to adjust. They would routinely stay for greater than 5 days and go to inpatient rehabilitation.
Early in the era of knee replacements over 30 years ago, patients were admitted to the hospital prior to surgery and "medically optimized" for surgery. Prior to our fast-track programs, total knee replacement surgery was a timely process from prior to surgery with extended stays in the hospitals.
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