WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2021 - MORE HEALTH - KNEE REPLACEMENT

 WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2021 - MORE HEALTH 

(Happy First Day of Fall, 2021)

“It hurts with every step I take”

“At some point in every person's life, you will need an assisted medical device - whether it's your glasses, your contacts, or as you age and you have a hip replacement or a knee replacement or a pacemaker. The prosthetic generation is all around us.”

I have many friends who have undergone knee surgery (or are anticipating it).  A related topic is hip replacement surgery.  Let’s look at that today as we continue in health week.

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Blue Cross/Blue Shield notes:

“Planned orthopedic surgeries are increasingly common among Americans ages 35 to 64, costing more than $25 billion dollars in 2017—an increase of 44 percent over the past eight years. Since 2010, prices have increased 6 percent for knee procedures and 5 percent for hip procedures. In the same time span, knee and hip replacement rates have increased 17 and 33 percent, respectively”  (source -Planned knee and hip replacement surgeries are on the rise in the U.S. | Blue Cross Blue Shield (bcbs.com)

Mayo Clinic also chips in:

“Knee replacement surgery — also known as knee arthroplasty — can help relieve pain and restore function in severely diseased knee joints. The procedure involves cutting away damaged bone and cartilage from your thighbone, shinbone, and kneecap and replacing it with an artificial joint (prosthesis) made of metal alloys, high-grade plastics, and polymers.

After total knee replacement surgery, you will be able to get out of bed and fully weight bear on your new knee within 24 hours but you may need to use a frame, crutches, or sticks for the first few days. 

People are normally discharged from the hospital after 3-5 days (sometimes longer) depending on how you are doing. Before you can go home, you will need to be able to:

. Get in and out of bed by yourself

. Walk safely with or without crutches/sticks/frame

. Climb steps and stairs (unless you don’t have any)

. Fully straighten your knee

. Bend your knee well, preferably at least 90°

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Related topic - can you avoid having a knee replacement?

8 Ways To Avoid Knee Replacement (practo.com) - I’m not going to give all eight ways!!

While knee replacement is a great option to stay healthy and active, this article suggests ways to avoid (or avoid as long as you can) knee replacement.

. Loss weight.  The article notes:

“Over 65% of Americans & over 30% of Indians are either overweight or obese. The problem with this is that a lot of stress goes through the joint during ambulation. This excess weight can lead to increased pain and/or increased arthritis. Losing weight allows the patient to decrease joint pain by decreasing stress over joint,

.Change your activities.  If you are having knee pain and you are a jogger, a skier, or do other activities that put stress on your knees, change them.  You can walk, give up the skiing, (by the way any word with two “I” letters in a row is kind of unique)

.Strength the muscles around the knee.  Here is a link with some knee exercises

Exercises to Help Knee Pain in Pictures (webmd.com)

. Use an aspirin substitute like Acetaminophen to lessen the pain

. Get injections Injections into the arthritic knee can help substantially relieve the pain. Presently the bulk of these injections consist of cortisone. There are some newer medications consisting of regenerative substances. These may in fact alter the course of arthritis.

. Get some braces - even Ace bandages to wrap the knee so it does move the wrong way.

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Hip replacement is similar - loss weight, change your activities, still active and fit.

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Years ago, TV aired “The Six Million Dollar Man” - where science replaced body parts with specialized parts that (maybe) worked better than the original body parts.  It seems as if science is moving this way.  

(Only slightly related - with 3D printing, medical professionals can “print” appropriate body parts adjusted to the specific human!!!  Not quite perfect - YET - but moving in that direction.)

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Maybe, someday science will have perfected replacement parts (like knee replacement, hip replacement, artificial hearts, artificial lungs, and more.  I’m not sure I want to live to 200 years old though!!!

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Joke:  A man was scheduled for the first brain replacement.  But, somehow in the middle of the surgery, they had taken the old brain out and hadn’t replaced it yet, and the surgical team took a coffee break.  When they returned, the man was gone!!!  They found him three years late as a professor (pick one) at:  [Dakota State University, Quinnipiac University, the University of Texas] teaching computer science!!!

Joke #2:  In a science store were a selection of brains with their prices:  female brain - age 25 - three dollars, female brain - age 42 - six dollars; female brain - age 65 - 4 dollars; male brain - age 31 - one thousand dollars; male brain age 49 - three thousand dollars; male brain age 72 - four thousand dollars.

The buyer asked why the male brains were so much more than the female brains.  The clerk said, “The male brains have hardly been used”!!

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Okay - love wins!!!

Karen