Total Knee Replacement

Recovery Time: Usually one year total. 

- First three months: Very painful, on the heavy duty opioids and titrate down at the end, do your PT to get your 0 / +120 ROM back, get rid of the walking aids when you are able.

- Months 4-6: Back to work, on OTC meds, walk a lot, start the exercise program to rebuild your dead quads, glutes and core, start back on stairs.

- Months 7-9: "Feeling more like my old self!", continue the exercise program for the muscle rebuild, increase walking distance, probably be off all meds, with better musculature you will feel more "balanced".

- Months 10-12: Pretty much back to normal, knee may still look a little bit larger than the other, clicking/clunking noises have decreased, stairs are no problem, stiffness/tightness has decreased significantly, dance at your one-year anniversary party.

- Post 12 Months: Stiffness, noises and the "swollen look" will decrease over time but have no effect on your daily life, docs say these effects could last 18 months or longer, stiffness could return unless you continue to keep the knee active.

WARNING:  This is a GENERAL guideline for a TKR recovery.  You will hear over and over again that "everyone is different".  Totally true.  Therefore you cannot EXPECT that your recovery will be like this.  These generalities apply to the POPULATION of TKR patients and never to any one individual.  We have heard from people who skate through this whole thing in three months and others who are still in nightmare mode with complications at two years.  You can never predict what your recovery will be like before you go through it, beginning to end.

Your best bet is to give up all expectations and timetables.  It's very Zen: "Your knee will be better when it's better."  Period.  You cannot push a knee to recovery so get the word "should" out of your head.  Push it and the knee bites you back with swelling, pain and more.  People call it a marathon, not a race...so true.

Meds:  Typically, people are given some heavy-duty opioids at the beginning...stuff like hydrocodone (Vicodin, Norco) or oxycodone (Percocet)...can be augmented by muscle relaxers like Flexeril.  Once the bad pain has passed, you can titrate down to Tramadol and then plain ibuprofen.  Voltaren Gel (RX in the US) is a great topical anti-inflammatory and pain reliever...Aspercream with 4% Lidocaine and Lidocaine patches helped with any nerve discomfort.  (Personally, I'm not a fan of nerve meds.)  However, work with your doc on med choice, dosage and schedule.  The pain will be intense at times but it should NEVER be unbearable. Sometimes, docs will change your meds or dose to get you the relief you need.  Again, this is only for the first 30-60 days, approximately.  Everyone is different.

Click on my name and then "See All Discussions".  I have lots of stuff out there about expectations, sleep, post-op depression, exercising and more.  Arm yourself with good information...do your own research...ask the docs lots of questions.  PS: Anyone who tells you that you will be back to work in six weeks is completely delusional.  Very, very, very few people can do that.  After reading over 4,000 posts on here, I can count them with a few digits on one hand.  I can tell you, at 2+ years post-op, that it does get better. Time, work and patience are your tools.  Give the knee time to heal, do the ROM and exercise work, and have patience that it will get better.  If you don't possess the latter, the knee will teach you...

My story is different but sort of the same I know for a fact each time your knee gets operated on it takes longer for it to heal and that is assuming there are no issues such as infections and your not having multiple surgeries on the same knee. Whether you like it or not  you have to be patient do not over do it with your activities it will heal but it takes time. In case your wondering I have had 17 surgeries all on my left knee out of the 17, 5 of them have been TKR's. I have learned to be patient it is very hard it stinks being in pain every single day it stinks even more so for me that I am going to need another surgery real soon since the last one is failing and it was also put in improperly. I have never had any issues with bending bad knee I can bend as far as the right no problems have not been able to get the leg flat. You may be inpatient but here I am facing another surgery that is more involved then a typical TKR now I am going to have major bone loss as well due to all the TKR's I have had and here I am trying to encourage others to stick with it and do your exercises ice when needed. I am jealous.