Elevation To Reduce Swelling After A Total Knee Replacement

Hey guys, Tony Maritado here. So when we're talking about elevation, right, and we're talking about post-surgical knee, we want to elevate specifically to reduce swelling

Elevation is not sitting back on the couch and propping your leg up on an ottoman

Elevation isn't laying back in a recliner. Elevation is getting the knee, the whole leg, really, at least to about 35

or 40 degrees at the hit, if not higher. So I understand it's challenging to find places in your

house to do this. The easiest place is on your couch. If you're able to recline or lay flat on your

back, what I usually recommend, so here's my couch. Let's pretend this is my left. I had a total

knee replacement on my left. It's swollen, it's hot, it's uncomfortable. I want to work on

elevating to reduce swelling. So what I would do, I'd sit on the couch, I'd pivot, I'd get that leg

up on the armrest of the couch, and I'd relax. From a comfort position, if it's too uncomfortable

to be further back with the knee in full unsupported extension, you can slide down

and at least get it supported somewhere around the mid-calf. If you can tolerate this position pretty well

then what I'm going to do is I'm going to say, let's elevate higher going to the back of the couch

So I come here, I rotate a little bit, and so now I've got that leg up

get this one out of the way so you can see. When I say 45 degrees even 90 degrees this is what I talking about from my body being zero to where my leg is we want to get it to minimum 30 degrees preferably 45 as close to 90 as you

comfortable and so if I could just stay in this position 10 to 15 minutes

that's kind of the ideal amount of time and then if you want to check if

there's any improvement you would take a tape measure measure around the girth the width of the knee the circumference you would do it before you get

into this position and then you do it again after certainly you can work your

ankle pumps certainly you can work your knee extension you can read a book you

can play on your phone you can watch TV whatever it is that you feel like you

want to do just to pass the time one other thing that we can do is from this

position we can work on tightening that quad pulling the toe back but we can also kind of let the other

leg down just to help stabilize the pelvis if you're getting some low back

discomfort so let me know how it goes spend 10 to 15 minutes in that elevated

position maybe later in the day when the swelling tends to increase

because gravity has been pulling that fluid down throughout the morning mid-afternoon, late in the day, the evening, you get that leg up, 10 to 15 minutes

Let me know if you find that the girth of that mid-knee is reduced after 10 to 15 minutes of elevation

In the next video, I'll show you how to use the rolling pin to help improve some of that

lymphatic drainage and getting some of those waste products out of the tissue as it's healing

All right, guys, I'll catch you next time