Our patients will be walking within two hours of the surgery. You can go back to work (depending on your job) whenever you choose to. I have many knee replacement patients back in the office part-time after one week. You can play an easy round golf at 6 weeks and doubles tennis at 10 weeks post op in most cases.
A step-by-step post-operative guide to your recovery
We use a femoral nerve block as an additional pain management technique on all of our total knee surgeries. This is an injection of a long acting “novacaine” like drug into the groin pre-op by the anesthesiologist. This numbs the femoral nerve, and greatly reduces the pain you feel for up to 30 hours. Depending on the block it can also makes the quadriceps muscle weak until the block wears off, so you have to hold on to your walker to prevent a fall. We are now using “adductor canal blocks” that only block the pain fibers of the femoral nerve, and not the motor fibers to the quadriceps. This allows patients to recover even faster, with more confidence in their gait and less risk of falling. Patients may choose a “spinal” or “general” anesthetic. (All told, I think the spinal patients recover faster, as they have less nausea and less fatigue. Also pain relief in the recovery room is MUCH better for the patients who have spinal ( regional ) anesthesia.
We try to avoid narcotic medications as much as possible early on. They have side effects of nausea, constipation, and lethargy. We use non-narcotic medications such as Toradol (a strong NSAID like motrin), IV Tylenol, Celebrex, Ultram, and Naprosyn as well as muscle & anxiety relaxers like ativan, xanax, and librium. Much of the hospital care focuses on pain management and immediate rehab, to get you going.
Our patients will be walking on the Joint Center floor ( 6 West at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn) within two hours of the surgery. This also GREATLY decreases the risk of clotting in the veins. Our DVT rate is less than one percent with this early motion protocol. We also use aspirin, coumadin, or lovenox as a blood thinner, depending on the risks and special circumstances for each patient. Most patients will be discharged on two aspirins a day for 30 days. A foley catheter in the bladder is removed on day one. These allow us to measure urine output which is an accurate indicator of overall body function. It is hard for some people to get to the bathroom immediately after surgery, and so it is a matter of convenience as well. (The anesthetic medications often make it harder to urinate initially, however, more people are choosing to have surgery without the catheter).
All patients get 24 hours of IV antibiotics to prevent infection. ( Infections are rare, and our infection rate is about 1/200 or .5%, and appears mostly to be a matter of “bad luck”). The most important thing patients can do to prevent infection is to CALL US if there is any wound drainage after they go home. Also avoiding the bath tub and pool is important until the wound is sealed.
Some younger patients will go home on the day after surgery. Most Total knee patients elect to stay an extra day however, as the nerve block wears off and the more “normal” pain returns. Total knee replacement hurts more than a total hip replacement, mostly because of the need to BEND the knee (and repaired quadriceps muscle) as soon as possible. Physical therapy starts in the hospital on the day of surgery. You may bear full weight with the walker. It is rare for patients to go to a nursing home or rehab facility unless they are elderly or frail, or have nobody to help them a little at home.
Outpatient physical therapy will be arranged for you at your convenience. We do have our own rehab center here at the Scottsdale Joint Center, and one advantage of doing it here is we are around to keep a closer eye on your progress. You can, however, have PT anywhere in Phoenix that is convenient for you. Most patients stop taking narcotic pain pills after the second week. Motrin and Tylenol work well after that.
You can go back to work (depending on your job) whenever you choose to. I have many knee replacement patients back in the office part-time after one week. You can play golf at 6 weeks and tennis at 10 weeks post-op in most cases. You can drive your car when you feel you’re ready, usually one week after a left total knee and three weeks after a right knee surgery. Over 90% 0f patients will be very happy with their new knee. However, it has recently been shown that about 10% of patients still have some reservations about the knee or pain with some activities. We try to lower expectations to some extent, as a TOTAL KNEE is not a normal knee (after all it is a metal and plastic device that your body must adapt to!). I must say that it is my observation that most patients continue to improve for over a year after surgery.
We used to ask patients to come back for a follow-up visit yearly, but most do so well that seems to be “over-treatment”. You should come back once at a year out for an X-ray to detect anything unusual, and then after that you may follow up only as needed. You can expect your knee replacement to last about twenty years, however it may last less or longer in any particular individual. The best explanation for longevity that I have heard is that one knee out of a hundred will fail per year over the long term. That means if one hundred patients had their knees replaced on the same day, 80 would still be happy with their knee function 20 years later. As many as 20 patients over 20 years may have had the knee revised due to a variety of possible failure mechanisms.
The most common causes of knee replacement “failure” are:
- Loosening of the cement bond (gradual)
- Stretching of ligaments with resulting instability (gradual)
- Infection (0.5% risk)
- Loss of motion (arthrofibrosis) (0.7% risk)
- Fracture/ Bone collapse (0.1% risk)
- Nerve pain /chronic swelling/ sensitivity (.5% risk)
The good news is that re-do or REVISION Total Knee Replacement can have excellent results as well. This is why many younger patients are choosing to get their knees fixed sooner. Some people say “the next ten years of your life are your best ten years”, and so total knee replacement can sometimes be the best option available for disabling knee arthritis.
Please come in to our office to see us if you have other questions!
Had I Known Then…Letters of Self Reflection From Those Whose Lives Were Changed by Joint ReplacementJoint replacement can be one of the most meaningful and life-changing operations a person can have. These stories share the experiences of those who have been given joy and hope through knee replacement and other joint replacement surgeries.Read these inspirational stories