Originally Posted by metalheart44

Congratulations, you are on the path to recovery and the time immediately post-surgery can be pretty rough. I personally see no downside to taking whatever dose of meds to make sure your pain is controlled. My doc prescribed Norco with a standing order for dilaudid if needed. I also asked for Toradol to complement the Norco immediately post-surgery and that seemed to help. It is an anti-inflammatory drug and if your doc approves of use for your case it can help. A couple of things to think about: (1) if you have a Foley catheter, it should be removed soon, and I found that slightly unpleasant, but not necessarily painful; (2) it is likely you have a drain in your leg and that can be unpleasant to mildly painful. The nurse did not warn me about the discomfort/pain with the drain removal and I was a bit unnerved by it. I thought it was just a short drain, but it seemed like it was 18 inches long and he just keep pulling this thing out of my leg. The second TKR I was ready for the experience and it was not so bad, but just something to be prepared for.

The path from here forward is only up and after you are into recovery and it no longer hurts to walk downstairs or just walk period, you will wonder why you waited so long to have surgery. For me it was life changing and it has made a significant difference in my overall quality of life and especially in my cycling. But, one thing to remember about the path forward is that it is often not a linear recovery: progress and set-backs seems to be the nature of the game. Finding the sweet spot where you do enough in recovery but not too much to cause swelling is the art of recovering quickly.

Keep us posted often on how things are going. Sleep when you can......