Pain after a knee replacement can be severe and intense.
Sometimes there is a medical or structural reason for pain that needs assessment – infection, loosening, fracture or another complication needs to be excluded.
But when the wound has healed and the knee replacement is healing well, understanding why there is still so much pain helps to manage it.
Your pain experience is unique to you but there are many common pre-surgical, surgical and post-surgical reasons why pain is so intense.
Pre-surgery
Before surgery, osteoarthritis usually leads to sensitisation of both the knee joint and the pain system meaning that it is primed to respond to any new changes that occur.
This means that the pain system is turned up and pain intensity will be higher when surgery is conducted.
Surgery
The surgery causes injury to bone and other tissues leading to more joint inflammation which increases the sensitivity of the knee joint and pain system.
Neuropathic pain due to a nerve injury has been estimated to effect only 5% of people and can be looked for on clinical examination.
Post-surgery
Not enough sleep, not enough exercise, not enough nutritious food, anxiety, stress and any surgical complications can influence how much pain you are experiencing.
1 in 5 people can also experience “opioid hypersensitivity” – this is an increase in pain due to taking codeine, oxycodone, tapentadol, tramadol or other opioids.
What to do about pain after knee replacement?
Understanding that pain is not all about the knee is the first step to determining the options you have to reducing pain.
Medication can help but so too can ice, sleep, good food, stress reduction and the right exercise.
If your pain has persisted for longer than 12 weeks, learn more about how our Kneed program could help you.
