It is very common to experience swelling after surgery. Sometimes, you will not swell until several days after your surgery. Remember that your body is healing from the surgery and some swelling is normal. The more activities and physical therapy you perform, the more swelling you may experience. With that said, we do want you to remain active and participate in therapy. But, when sitting and resting, you can decrease the swelling by elevating your surgical leg and using ice. It is important to elevate your leg, with your knee above the level of your heart, 4-5 times a day for 15-30 minutes each time to help reduce your swelling.

Your toes should be above your nose!

You should call our office if you have swelling for several days that is accompanied by redness and heat or coolness in your surgical leg, or if the swelling does not resolve after elevating.

Yes, you will have some degree of bruising after surgery, but everyone is different. Some will only experience redness around the incision; others will have bruising down the entire leg. Both are considered normal and will resolve over 10-14 days.

Joint replacement surgery requires an incision in the skin to perform the operation. This incision may look red, have some bloody drainage, and itch for the first week after surgery. You will have a dressing over the incision that will keep it sterile and dry, but you may see up to ½ of this dressing stained with blood. If more than ½ of the dressing is stained, please call our office.

Make sure that your pain is well controlled throughout the day. During the day, be careful about taking naps. Try to plan your activities as near normal as possible. If you still cannot sleep, try melatonin which is an over-the-counter natural sleep aid. You may sleep in any position you’d like to so get comfortable! If you continue to have issues, please call one of the nurses to discuss.

Although we practice rapid recovery protocols and minimally invasive techniques, surgery can still be painful. If you are experiencing pain after surgery, and the pain medications based on the schedule above are not sufficient, please do not hesitate to call our office.

You should still be taking Diclofenac for at least 6 weeks after surgery which is an anti-inflammatory so you should not add Aleve or Advil to your regimen. You should take Tylenol or extra-strength Tylenol if your pain is not controlled.

Unfortunately, pain medicines may cause constipation post-operatively. It is best to continue drinking fluids to remedy these symptoms. Remember to take the Senna twice daily until you are having 1 bowel movement every 1 or 2 days. If you begin to have loose or watery stools discontinue this medication. If you continue to have constipation, you can take milk of magnesia or magnesium citrate orally. If this does not work, you may try a Dulcolax suppository or a Fleet’s enema. All of these are over-the-counter medications that can be bought in the pharmacy.

The muscles, not only immediately around the affected joint, but all the muscles of the affected thigh/leg may be sore after surgery. It is not uncommon to feel soreness for the first 6 weeks after your operation. Don’t worry, this will improve with physical therapy and healing.

Should you require general anesthesia, your throat, tongue or lips may experience soreness after surgery.

You may hear clicking in the knee after surgery and this is normal. It is usually more noticeable after surgery when you have swelling. As the swelling decreases the clicking may become less noticeable.

We want to give the soft tissues around the hip time to heal after surgery. Please look at the pictures on page 10 for clarifications. If you had your surgery from the front or from the back, your precautions will be different. Also, if you had a revision surgery, you may have different and longer precautions, please call our office if there is any confusion.