I had spent a good five days tossing and turning in my bed before the day came. This was the D-day for me - my orthopedic surgeon was going to break the news. The pronouncement would be whether I needed a knee surgery or not. For closer to a decade, I had been having problems climbing a flight of stairs. Even standing was proving to be a task, and I had this bad feeling that someday my right knee is going to give way. It was a known fact that I had osteoarthritis, but the apprehensions grew manifold as the S-word was bandied about liberally at the meeting with my doc.

For long, it was NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) both in tablets and injections that had kept the surgeon's knife at bay for a long time, but it couldn't be done any longer.

I was given the option of an anesthesia which put me to sleep during the course of the operation or numbing from waist down in the form of epidural anesthesia. I didn't really feel the dreaded pain I was expecting after the surgery as I was on pain killers. This was through a devide on your hand called patient controlled anesthetic which injects pain killers as and when required. At the same time, the amount of pain killer does not exceed a certain limit at any given time.

There are two things you can do to improve your chance of getting back to normal and improving the quality of life after a knee replacement surgery.

1. It is very important to utilize the pain killers when required. Most people are against this theory as pain killers could be addictive or cause constipation. This is where laxatives step in. More often than not, doctors prescribe laxatives as a prophylactic measure when a patient is on pain killers. It is also noteworthy that the body treats a knee replacement as a trauma and the pain is a natural response to it. Therefore, it is important to make the best use of pain killers to be able to do exercises that require the leg to be straightened. It is difficult in the beginning but not impossible to do the exercises and resume normal activities as soon as possible.
2. Recovering from surgery, overnight I was encouraged by the physio to get out of bed and get accustomed to the crutches and walk. The trick is to start doing the exercises even though it might cause a tremendous pain in the beginning. Bending the knee and the extent to which it can bend is a criteria to measure the success of the surgery. The faster you can bend your knee 90 degrees, the faster is the recovery time and the faster you can go home and recuperate. It is all possible if you take the pain killers judiciously which can abate the pain to a great extent.

Once home, it is critical to stick to the exercise regime and get the assistance of a physiotherapist if needed. If the knee is not exercised according to the scheduled prescribed, scar tissue forms and it complicates matters in that another surgery may be required to resolve this issue. It helps to take the pain killers 10 to 20 minutes before your exercise routine as it takes some time for the these medicines to take effect.

If you are planning to undergo a knee replacement surgery in Chennai, Fortis Malar could help you abate most of your anxieties regarding knee replacement surgery. With some of the best knee replacement surgeons in Chennai, Fortis could help you regain your life in terms of getting back to a normal life. It also helps that they have world-class arthritis specialists and state-of-the-art diagnostic and interventional equipments that would stand you in good stead if you are planning to go the interventional way and enhancing your quality of life. I can vouch for this fact from my experience of undergoing a knee replacement surgery at Fortis Malar, Chennai.