If you actually completely realized how difficult the next 4 months of your life would be trying to return to quality of life you likely might not even have a knee replacement surgery.
So, knowing this if you are over 50 or 60 that this is a psychologically and pain wise almost impossibly thing to face as you are going through it, (even if you have prepared for it) mostly your doctor can better prepare you for this than you likely can prepare yourself.
First, it is the single most painful operation (long term) performed on a human body on earth. Because of this you likely will have to take a drug (once every 4 hours) like Percocet:
Perkaset (Percocet) Information from Drugs.com
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Perkaset is a common misspelling of Percocet. Perkaset contains acetaminophen and oxycodone and is an analgesic used to treat moderate to moderately ...Side Effects of Perkaset | eHow
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Side Effects of Perkaset.
Percocet is an opioid prescription pain pill. It is highly addictive
and should not be prescribed for people with a history of addiction ...
So, if you are a person prone to becoming drug addicted you really need to be careful. One of the ways to avoid this is to go slowly from 2 pills every 4 hours (which means you cannot drive at all while taking this medicine) to 1 1/2 every 4 hours to eventually 1 every 4 hours to 1/2 every 4 hours etc. until you are completely off this drug.
However, my wife presently is in her 5th week and is still taking at least 1 pill every 4 hours and maybe 1 1/2 pills every four hours at night. Night is the most painful because when you are in bed your whole system slows down. The other time it is painful is during physical therapy.
You are trying (within the first 6 weeks of the operation) to get to 130 degrees bend in your knee. IF you don't get to the point where you can do this then your doctor will have to perform another procedure to force your robot replacement knee to get to 130 degrees otherwise you will have a stiff leg from scar tissue in the muscles the rest of your life.
So, the main goal of the first 6 weeks is not to be completely pain free but to get to 130 bend in your knee.
Our pharmacy doesn't have the security necessary to keep percocet on hand because it is a controlled substance. So, when my wife's prescription is refilled they order it the day before and want us to pick it up right away.
The other thing that one might need to know is don't expect to be able to go out and work at any job for 2 to 4 months. You might do it but you but it likely would be hell simply because you are supposed to have your leg up 23 hours a day and only be walking on it less than 1/2 hour a day if you want to get to 130 degree motion in your knee by 6 weeks. So, don't expect to drive right away because of pain and mobility and likely don't expect to work (outside your home) either.
So, you will usually need some kind of caregiver to shop for you and to take care of you during this time. However, as my wife's caregiver I must say that it has been about 10 times or more harder in any way I could have imagined. It's really good that we were best friends when all this started or we might not be friends now. At age 66 it has been really tough and I told her if she ever gets her other knee done she needs to find a different caregiver so we don't have to get divorced over the next one.
So, this is not an easy thing. However, everyone says your quality of life returns at about 4 months into it if you do all the steps correctly.
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