United States
@2Kittens....please try to stay away from reading a lot of information like this article from the internet you posted a link to. You are not this woman. Your recovery is unique to you. You should not compare yourself to anyone. You'll be a lot happier with your recovery if you take things slow and listen to your body. You are less than 2 weeks out of surgery. It will be several months before you start to feel somewhat normal again. If you perform some exercise or activity around the house and you hurt afterwards (up to 24 hours afterwards), that's your body saying it's not ready for that level of activity. If you continue, the pain will just increase.
You need to keep your pain under control. Be sure you are taking your pain medications on a set schedule so that you always have something in your system to help with pain. If they are not working for you, contact your surgeon and let him know immediately. There are many options. If the prescription pain medications make you feel "strange," I'm assuming that means they make you feel drowsy or tired. That's okay....you need to be doing a lot of resting and napping. You should only be up and around for 5-10 minutes every hour or two. The rest of the time should be spent with your leg elevated as Celle showed you in an earlier post. You should ice the painful areas of your hip and leg any time you are lying down. Once you have your pain under control for a week or so, then you can start to increase your walking - but slowly! If things start to hurt, it means you're pushing too hard and you'll need to take some steps backward for a few days until things settle again
I must also caution you against self medicating like you are doing with the muscle relaxers. Medications can have interactions and you should never do this without your doctor's approval. It's better to call his office, explain the problem, and get his recommendation.
Try to calm down and not stress out about where you are in recovery. Since your surgeon told you that your muscles were extremely tight prior to surgery, you can assume that your recovery will take longer than the "average." Your body is in control of this recovery and your job is to do the things necessary to help it heal properly. Sometimes the things to "do" involve a good amount of rest, ice, and elevation....not exercise or activity around the house.
You need to keep your pain under control. Be sure you are taking your pain medications on a set schedule so that you always have something in your system to help with pain. If they are not working for you, contact your surgeon and let him know immediately. There are many options. If the prescription pain medications make you feel "strange," I'm assuming that means they make you feel drowsy or tired. That's okay....you need to be doing a lot of resting and napping. You should only be up and around for 5-10 minutes every hour or two. The rest of the time should be spent with your leg elevated as Celle showed you in an earlier post. You should ice the painful areas of your hip and leg any time you are lying down. Once you have your pain under control for a week or so, then you can start to increase your walking - but slowly! If things start to hurt, it means you're pushing too hard and you'll need to take some steps backward for a few days until things settle again
I must also caution you against self medicating like you are doing with the muscle relaxers. Medications can have interactions and you should never do this without your doctor's approval. It's better to call his office, explain the problem, and get his recommendation.
Try to calm down and not stress out about where you are in recovery. Since your surgeon told you that your muscles were extremely tight prior to surgery, you can assume that your recovery will take longer than the "average." Your body is in control of this recovery and your job is to do the things necessary to help it heal properly. Sometimes the things to "do" involve a good amount of rest, ice, and elevation....not exercise or activity around the house.
