Duration of Stiffness After Total Knee Replacement - How Long Does it Take to Heal?

The decision to have a full knee replacement operation is usually a long time coming. As you research the surgery itself, preparations you should make and details about recovery, you may find yourself overwhelmed with advice and tips from friends, family and strangers on the internet. To simplify things a bit, here is a generalized sequence of recovery that most patients go through. To answer the question of what the duration of stiffness after total knee replacement surgery is, read on.

Your surgeon may or may not have discussed the actually healing process with you yet. As you heal, your knee will go through three fairly distinct stages of rehabilitation. As a patient undergoing an intensive surgery like full knee replacement, it is critical for you to understand what you can expect once the surgery is in the past and you are doing your best to speed up the healing process. The first phase is undoubtedly the most painful with accurately descriptive words like swelling, throbbing and uncomfortable stiffness. To help decrease the duration of stiffness after total knee replacement, pumping the knee back and forth five or ten times is recommended. It can loosen up the knee and prevent spasms.

The next phase is when you really need to be careful. You may think your knee is ready to handle certain things it truly is not capable of yet. Newfound freedom of walking with a walker or cane can usually be accomplished at this point, but be sure to not overdo it. The final stage is the long-term healing. Your surgeon will probably tell you a year is about the time frame you can expect to be fully healed at. Before this amount of time has passed however, you should be able to perform many basic high-impact activities within reason and the duration of stiffness after total knee replacement should not be a topic of discussion anymore. By the end of this phase, you will have achieved the highest range of motion and lack of stiffness you can expect to get out of your artificial knee.

If you want to decrease the duration of stiffness after total knee replacement to far under the final stage of healing, there are certain things you must incorporate into your everyday life. Exercising methods will increase mobility and decrease recovery time while the right diet will keep your weight down and prevent unneeded stress to be put on your knee as it heals.

A Strict doctor ordered rehabilitation always follows knee replacement surgery. Unfortunately, this rehab is only enough to give you some mobility and get back part of your life. They don't expect people with knee replacements to have the full abilities like they once did, so they don't even try. With the right exercise and routines, though, you can have that life back, despite what the doctors tell you. Take the time to learn about rehabilitation from knee replacement surgery, and how you can ease your fear of living a sedentary life buy taking action.