Managing Pain

I learned this last week that a full knee replacement operation is the most painful operation you can have on a physical body. My thought as a layman is that this likely is caused by trauma to both muscles and bones when you cut off tips of bones and stretch muscles out of the way for quick recovery. We took off the bandage from my wife's knee replacement surgery a week ago last Wednesday today and thought the incision was healing nicely with no blood draining since we checked out of the hospital last Friday afternoon a week ago now.

The biggest problem I see is pain management because a person going through this is in so much pain 24 hours a day that they have to be doing something like 2 percoset every 4 hours continuously. This makes people a little strange to deal with. Since my wife has a Master's degree and two bachelor's degrees she is a little bit of a control freak whereas I am only a control freak about big things and not details.

However, on pain meds she sort of wants to be in control of everything so sometimes I just have to walk away when it gets too crazy or go for a walk or something to clear my head. It's sort of like dealing with a 12 to 17 year old when someone is on this much pain medication and have to remain home all the time for awhile to recover. Having to stay home on the 4th of July while both my daughters were out with friends or family was a little difficult for both of us.

So, I think the single biggest thing to be concerned about while recovering from something like this is finding ways to manage pain and reduce swelling while maintaining as much mobility as possible. In addition to pain medications and walking either with a cane or with a walker around the house we are using an icing machine. We put four plastic water bottles in the freezer and then put those in the machine that is also filled with water. Then we plug the water pump that goes through tubes into a harness that velcros onto the front and sides of her knee for about 20 minutes at a time.

By keeping 4 bottles always in the freezer (8 total) we always have 4 frozen bottle to use 24 hours a day. We ice about 20 minutes every 2 hours while she is awake which reduces swelling and pain while the leg is elevated above the heart.