It is common for patients to be tired following a total hip replacement, which is due in part to anesthesia, blood loss, pain, and the necessity of prescription pain medications. This fatigue will slowly resolve over the course of the first 6 weeks following surgery.
It is quite common to feel fatigued after surgery, regardless of whether it was a minor or major procedure. This is because your body expends a lot of energy afterward trying to heal. There is an immune response that kicks in, which can be physically draining as well.
Having an orthopedic surgery can leave you feeling tired for weeks or months after the procedure. Here's a list of 7 main causes of fatigue after surgery: surgical stress, blood loss, medications, pain after surgery, energy of healing, dietary changes, and sleep disturbance.
People can often remain in bed for days or even weeks after surgery. This can lead to a lack of energy and fatigue. It is vital that you begin moving quickly and trying to exercise. Basic movements and exercise help rebuild muscle strength and improve your blood circulation.
“On average, hip replacement recovery can take around two to four weeks, but everyone is different,” says Thakkar. It depends on a few factors, including how active you were before your surgery, your age, nutrition, preexisting conditions, and other health and lifestyle factors.
Tiredness, exhaustion, or severe and prolonged fatigue are common after surgery – even minor surgery. This is, in part, due to the effects of anesthesia, which often wear off more slowly in older people.
The second complication we try to avoid is loosening of the implants. This can happen when patients do too much walking and stress the implants prior to the ingrowth process. Generally, I advise patients to walk only a few hundred yards a day total until they get to around six weeks.
However, walking is generally considered as the best exercise following total hip replacement. This is because it helps to promote hip movement and is a low-impact activity.
Six weeks: Many people feel like themselves again by the six-week mark. However, if you had cardiac surgery, brain surgery, post-surgical complications, or are still in a lot of pain, fatigue may last a few more weeks.
After surgery, your body undergoes repair and recovery, which drives a higher baseline metabolic rate and draws on your nutrient stores. So it isn't surprising such intense activity at a cellular level results in feeling tired after surgery.
Postoperative delirium is the formal name for this post-surgery fog. But another condition, postoperative cognitive dysfunction or decline (POCD), can have more lasting effects on memory, attention, and concentration – from months to a lifetime.
You can expect to experience some discomfort in the hip region itself, as well as groin pain and thigh pain. This is normal as your body adjusts to changes made to joints in that area. There can also be pain in the thigh and knee that is typically associated with a change in the length of your leg.
The Don'ts
Don't cross your legs at the knees for at least 6 to 8 weeks. Don't bring your knee up higher than your hip. Don't lean forward while sitting or as you sit down. Don't try to pick up something on the floor while you are sitting.
Gentle exercise is beneficial, such as short, gentle walks around your home and outside. Supervised physiotherapy, like rehabilitation programmes and hydrotherapy, can also help improve recovery in the weeks following surgery.
It is common to experience a mild fever during the first few days after surgery along with nausea, light-headedness and dizziness from anesthesia or narcotic medications. Drinking fluids, deep breathing exercises and getting up and moving around should help. These symptoms should typically improve in 2-5 days.
How long does it take to recover from anesthesia? Anesthetic drugs can stay in your system for up to 24 hours. If you've had sedation or regional or general anesthesia, you shouldn't return to work or drive until the drugs have left your body.
The gluteus medius muscle (on the outside of your hip) is probably most important in rehabilitation, because its weakness has been associated with pain, joint instability, poor balance and functional deficits (Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research 1995).
Functional leg length discrepancy occurs when the patient perceives the limb to be shorter or longer without actual change in limb length. Majority of the leg length discrepancies after hip replacement surgery resolve in 3-6 months.
Many people return to normal activities within 10 to 12 weeks after surgery, but full recovery can take six to 12 months. Pain usually goes away during this time, but some people feel some pain beyond the first year.
Activity. It is important to gradually increase your out-of-home activity during the first few weeks after surgery. If you do too much activity, your hip may become more swollen and painful.
3-4 weeks post-op
Continue with the above exercises and continue to increase the distance that you walk outside, some patients by this time may be comfortable walking as much as a mile a day.
You have a window of time immediately after your surgery in which you can restore the range of motion in your new joint. If you don't move and engage in physical therapy, however, scar tissue develops that restricts movement and your muscles weaken.
In cycling, the load on the articulations of the hips is practically reduced, in spite of the great effort. The load placed by the body weight on the hip joint, even in ascents, is reduced during this exercise, though the risk of prosthesis loosening is apparently very small.