bumleg
junior member
Hi again, surgery is looming in the near future. Tomorrow morning and again I have more questions. I have been limping a long time and have R knee,hip and back pain because of it. With a new knee will these extra pains go away on their own? I have loss some ROM in the hip. I exercise daily and do ROM exercises to help speed recovery. I started doing leg raises with a 3 lb ankle wt because that is how much the new knee will weigh. I hope it gives me the head start I'm aiming for. I will be getting an epidural and sleep medicine for surgery so I should be fairly comfortable for a good while afterward. I intend on making full use of pain management. If later on I find I need to take narcotics before PT, I have no problem with that. I already have a small stash from other recent procedures. Fortunately my GP and other docs know me from working with me in the past so if I need any more than OS is comfortable prescribing it shouldn't be a problem. In the past I have found that I put up with more pain than necessary. Usually after I've taken narcs for pain that I realize how bad it was. The other thing is in the past I haven't needed to take narcs for more than a few days, thats why I have the stash. I have never had major surgery either so this may be different. I'm not sure what to expect with pain management. Is it realistic to expect meds to completly get rid of the pain? Lortab cuts the pain but does not totally do away with it. Should I expect the new knee not to hurt with weight bearing? I know that once the epidural wears off I will have post surgical pain. When I get back home I will take my meds every 4-6 hours when I feel the pain starting to return. Its harder to get pain relief than to prevent if its allowed to become to strong. I am going to let my body tell me when to wean off the hard stuff providing I find its not taking forever. How do I tell if I have a good physical therapist? I have never had PT before. I am concerned I won't do well because when I had the partial meniscectomy I had a more difficult time than what it seems most people have with the same thing. I just had it last Dec. My OS that did the surgery didn't order PT and I was hoping that I could get by with just home exercises. The limp and accompaning pain never went away. Even Lortabs don't help that knee. Anti inflammatories took care of the pain in my back and R hip and R knee. Of course now both ankles and feet hurt in addition to sharp pain down the front of my L shin with wt bearing. I don't know how I could cope with this if my surgery was further away. My old pleasant self has been gone a long time and I miss her. I'm too young to be this cranky.