Rellimarual
junior member
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2020
- Messages
- 28
- Age
- 64
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
60-year-old female. I'm on day 4 after the surgery (11/12), which went very well. I have almost no pain and have not taken the opioids given to me since getting home, just the anti-inflammatory and nerve blocker. No swelling that I can see either. I haven't been icing, I confess, and I was only given one compression stocking on discharge (it was placed on the nonoperative leg before the surgery and the discharging nurse did not mention that I needed to go on wearing it or wear one on each leg. I hate these stockings and would rather just do ankle pumps continuously while lying down. Am I tempting fate? The on-call doc I spoke with about this said my surgeon likes patients to wear them, but another she works with doesn't require them.
I live alone but have a friend staying with me. I'm trying to walk around the ground floor of the house hourly with the walker. I'd like to switch to the cane soon and wonder how soon other folks with this surgery made the switch. I would like to walk outside soon, as well, but I live in country and the ground is not always flat, although not too bad where I live.
The discomfort I've had (I would barely call it pain, compared to the pain of an arthritis flare up) seems to be of three kinds. The main one is sore muscles, the muscles pushed out of the way for the surgery. Some of these are whacked out by the experience, but I'm now able to, say, swing my legs up and onto the bed without too much difficulty. (It was impossible the first day home.) One of the prescribed exercises I haven't been able to do at all is moving the whole leg outward to the side while lying down. It's cold in Maine right now, and my bedclothes are flannel and I'm wearing fleece sweats: too much friction there. So I'm doing that one standing up.
The other pain is an occasional stinging sensation from the incision area that I get when trying to, say, drag my legs across the surface of the bed, or reach for something. I assume this is because I'm pulling on the skin around the incision. Trying to avoid that, as my dressing already has some big blood spots (not yet saturated to the edges).
Lastly the joint itself just feels kind of weird most of the time. I can see how if I walked or stood on it continuously it might start to ache, but most of the time it's fine.
I work a pretty sedentary job at home, so I'm starting to work again today. I can do basic household tasks like emptying the dishwasher, feeding the cat, making a pot of oatmeal, etc., with some accommodations while using the walker, though it's hard to carry anything. I gotta say, I'm already getting restless and probably need to not push things, but I feel quite good and really have less pain now than I did from my old hip. Unfortunately the right hip has advanced OA and is not super happy with the current regimen.
I live alone but have a friend staying with me. I'm trying to walk around the ground floor of the house hourly with the walker. I'd like to switch to the cane soon and wonder how soon other folks with this surgery made the switch. I would like to walk outside soon, as well, but I live in country and the ground is not always flat, although not too bad where I live.
The discomfort I've had (I would barely call it pain, compared to the pain of an arthritis flare up) seems to be of three kinds. The main one is sore muscles, the muscles pushed out of the way for the surgery. Some of these are whacked out by the experience, but I'm now able to, say, swing my legs up and onto the bed without too much difficulty. (It was impossible the first day home.) One of the prescribed exercises I haven't been able to do at all is moving the whole leg outward to the side while lying down. It's cold in Maine right now, and my bedclothes are flannel and I'm wearing fleece sweats: too much friction there. So I'm doing that one standing up.
The other pain is an occasional stinging sensation from the incision area that I get when trying to, say, drag my legs across the surface of the bed, or reach for something. I assume this is because I'm pulling on the skin around the incision. Trying to avoid that, as my dressing already has some big blood spots (not yet saturated to the edges).
Lastly the joint itself just feels kind of weird most of the time. I can see how if I walked or stood on it continuously it might start to ache, but most of the time it's fine.
I work a pretty sedentary job at home, so I'm starting to work again today. I can do basic household tasks like emptying the dishwasher, feeding the cat, making a pot of oatmeal, etc., with some accommodations while using the walker, though it's hard to carry anything. I gotta say, I'm already getting restless and probably need to not push things, but I feel quite good and really have less pain now than I did from my old hip. Unfortunately the right hip has advanced OA and is not super happy with the current regimen.