Post Operative Care

The time spent in your hospital room during recovery should be relaxed. After surgery, you may feel weak, nauseous, dizzy and have a loss of appetite, but these symptoms will pass soon after your surgery. You will have some level of pain, which differs for everyone. You can have visitors once you are out of recovery and back in your room.

Physical therapy typically begins one day after surgery, although many patients receiving partial knee replacements may begin therapy on the day of surgery. Your physical therapists will visit you and begin a personalized rehabilitation program that will help you regain strength, balance, and range of movement in your knee. Your physical therapists will help you perform appropriate exercises. Within 12-24 hours after surgery, you will typically be asked to stand. You will be re-trained to walk, initially with the help of crutches or a walker.

You will have a catheter in your bladder overnight after surgery. While this is in place, you may feel a need to urinate. However, the catheter will take care of this for you. Once the catheter is removed, you'll be able to use a bedside commode, urinal, or bedpan to urinate or to move your bowels. Alternatively, if you are supervised by nursing personnel or a physical therapist, you can use the restroom.

Your lungs need to exercise regularly after surgery to reduce the risk of mucous build-up, which can cause fevers, cough, fatigue, and in severe cases, pneumonia. Therefore, while you are hospitalized we require that you frequently perform deep breathing exercises (every hour while awake) with the use of a spirometer (a breathing instrument) that we will supply in the hospital.

Your bandage will be loosened the day after surgery and changed or removed 2 days after surgery. You will have staples running along the front of your knee. They will be removed approximately 14 days after surgery.

We can provide you with toothpaste and a toothbrush and you should be able to shave your face soon after surgery. If you need assistance, our nursing staff can help with these needs.

Diet
As a result of the anesthesia, your intestinal tract may be sluggish for several days after surgery. This can result in your intestines becoming distended (called ileus) which can become a serious problem if not watched carefully. Due to this concern, we will advance your diet slowly after surgery. Initially you are allowed ice chips and then the diet will progress in a supervised fashion from a liquid diet to more solid food over a period of several days.