question for those who are more knowledgeable than me. If time and healing is most important, what is the value of physical therapy if it causes pain and inflamation? I know some, including my (surgeon) believe that you must push through pain so that scar tissue does not build up and interfere with range of motion?
If you are fortunate enough to get a good PT therapist, they can help with massage, reduction of swelling, gentle exercises, balance, and correction of gait. They will be supportive and reassuring - and let's face it, going through recovery after a joint replacement, we do need a lot of reassuring that we are progressing normally.
If you get a PT therapist who is all about the ROM numbers, who preaches about a "window of opportunity," who frightens you about scar tissue, who says you have to push through the pain, who gives you lots of aggressive exercises, and who threatens their patient with a manipulation if their ROM doesn't increase fast enough, you have a bad therapist.
What that sort of therapist practices is bad PT - and no PT at all is better than bad PT.
My surgeon doesn't allow any formal PT at all for the first month after a knee replacement. He says your knee needs that time, to start on its journey of healing. For that month, we rest, ice and elevate our leg, and walk around the house. The walking is our exercise and we increase it a little each week.
After that month, we just go to PT once every 2 weeks, where we are shown a few new exercises to do at home each day.
His patients all do well and achieve good ROM, as I did, and he hasn't had to do a manipulation to help with ROM for the past 4 years. I think that speaks for itself.
Personally, I feel that going to PT to improve balance and gait at about 3 months post-op would have helped me.