day 2/3 - thoughts

[YetiKing]

ok, i'll get this out of the way.  sleep night 1 and day 2 (8+ hour drive home) were challenging to say the least.  stiffness sets in pretty quick, maybe just ever present, but doing my slides last night was a task.  the great news was that i slept through night 2 and felt good this morning.  getting out of bed is a task.

today will be a lot more 90's rap - ice, ice baby.

cheers

[jimbone]

Yeti-
First week seems to be the roughest for everyone.  Heel slides, abduction slides very challenging.  I found with both hips, for me progress was incremental, measured in inches for the first week, by day 10 I was seeing steady progress and starting to use the cane instead of crutches by end of week 2.  Everyone will have their own recovery trajectory but all seem to agree, slow and steady works the best.  Doing the exercises 2-3 ties a day and finding which ones seemed to help the most [not always the ones that feel are the easiest] got me moving best/fastest.  Icing a lot the first week was a big help and a necessity.  I was off the heavy drugs by day 2- the Oxy was just too much but appreciated the Tramadol I was prescribed.  By day 10 or so I got by with Tylenol mostly- that said, the drugs are prescribed for a good reason- to stay ahead of the pain especially in the early days.  You have a great surgeon and your outcome is greatly benefited by that.  Getting out of bed toward the side was really tough the 1st week- fortunately I have a platform bed without a foot board so I could slide out straight toward my feet and avoided the lateral movement that was a real challenge.  In 3 weeks time you'll be doing 1/2 -3/4 mile walks with a cane most likely and back toward enjoying life without the OA pain.  It's going to be wonderful again.  Best wishes.