Health is wealth. But sometimes we may take our health for granted because we cease to wholly appreciate it unless if it’s gone. Our body parts play the biggest role because with one of them failing to work, it will leave an everlasting effect. Knees are one of them. It has always been overseen as a mere body part but it impacts our bodily function terribly if it’s broken. Knee joint consists of cartilage inside it where it acts like a shock absorber between bones. When cartilage starts to break down, a person may begin to experience pain.

The meniscus cartilage stables out the knee joint while also helps to spread the body weight evenly. However, knee cartilage can deteriorate due to arthritis, injuries, obesity and many more. Total knee cap replacement surgery is the last resort for the patients if non-surgical options offered before electing surgery does not work. Read more about knee cap replacement options at Providence here.

Total and Partial Knee Cap Replacement

To know whether you’re a candidate for total knee replacement depends on the level of discomfort and pain you experience. For instance, if you only feel piercing pain when going up and down the stairs, you’re not a good candidate for the surgery because you can still improve your knee joint performance with other non-surgical treatments. But if you have a hard time walking, are above fifty and have tried the other treatments, knee replacement surgery is surely needed. The non-surgical treatments are such as monitoring a healthy diet and exercising regularly to strengthen knee muscles.

There are two different surgeries to be conducted depending on your pain symptoms such as only partial and total knee replacement. It’s partially replaced when ligaments are intact and pain isolates inside the knee portion. The partial knee replacement is to relieve the symptoms thus it needs not full knee replacement.

Resurfacing of the knee’s cartilage is expected in total knee replacement surgeries. The surgery offers several techniques in conducting it such as robotic-assisted surgery, computer-navigated surgery and custom cutting blocks and all three are on the same level in outcome aspect.

The surgery will be ongoing to an hour or more of an operation. After that, patient will have to wait four to five weeks after the surgery to walk without a cane or walking. They may be able to bend their knee to or beyond 90 degrees, but stiffness and pain may also be experienced for a short while.

Side Effects of Knee Cap Replacement

It’s dishonest to say that there’ll be no side effects of the surgery. Healthy patients face cardiovascular event such as a heart attack or stroke by 1% while 0.5% of knee replacement surgery patients develop an infection.

About 15 to 20% of knee replacement surgery patients have buyer’s remorse as an outcome of the operation. According to them, they still experience discomfort, clicking or a sensation of instability in their knee. It somehow makes them regretful.

Therefore, the experts will usually recommend non-surgical options beforehand. Patients who have undergone the surgery will be able to resume to physical active life but with one condition, to avoid high-impact activities such as running and basketball or it’d reinjure your knee. Instead, low-impact activity such as hiking, golfing and tennis are the other suggested sports.

In conclusion, you can easily relieve your knee pain by getting a surgery or proper treatment for it. But with it comes the huge responsibility for you to face afterwards which is nursing your knee back through recovery. All in all, we should all stick to healthy diet and regular simple exercise to help lower the risk of such conditions.