AS a fellow knee vet I had surgery number 7 in Dec., I thought I knew the deal before my last surgery. I had a reconstruction of my meniscus, so it was a bigger deal, but it was way harder that my ACL recon, or any of my other surgeries. I bet you, like me, aren't taking enough down time. I wouldn't panic, but keep up with your icing.
Good luck, hope you feel better soon. P.S. I was on pain meds for at least 10 days, and even took a few after hard rehab sessions during weeks 6-8.
> I'll make this as short as possible. This is 6th knee
> arthroscopic surgery, third on my left knee, I've also had
> an ACL surgery as well. I had severe cartilage damage in
> the back of my knee (to the point my doctor said I might
> want to consider a partial knee replacement someday).
> Anyway, it's been 6, almost 7 days since the surgery,
> obviously I'm not new to this game, so I expected things to
> be rougher the 7th time around.
> My concern is the amount of swelling that is occuring, the
> PT guy and my doc don't seem overly concerned, but if I
> remember right, other than my ACL surgery, most of my
> arthroscopic surgeries showed considerable reduction of
> swelling after a week.
> I've done everything by the book, icing, elevating, etc,
> etc. I'm off crutches (but contemplating going back on
> them), but the swelling isn't reducing in my opinion, and
> the pain is still unbearable at times (have found myself
> using painkillers still).
> Now, I'm no wimp, I've toughed out the previous 5
> arthroscopic knee surgeries 1-2 days after surgery without
> crutches or painkillers. I also went back to work after the
> 3rd or 4th day. I've not made it through an entire day of
> work yet.
> However, in order to sleep at night even 7 days later, I'm
> still using prescribed painkillers.
> Am I being paranoid at all? I'll see my PT tomorrow again
> so I'll ask him to re-measure the amount of swelling, but I
> was just wondering, is this to be expected, or not? Seeing
> as it didn't follow the same path as the past surgeries.
> Appreciate input.
> Richard
