Recovering Right After Knee Surgery

Hi Again,

One of the things that you will deal with right after your knee surgery is the pain, discomfort, and swelling in the knee itself. There is not one position that will "work" for any long period of time and you will find that moving from position to position is the only thing that sort of keeps the pain bearable.

The doctor will most likely tell you to keep the leg elevated (which means that the knee is supposed to be higher than your heart) and have ice on it. You will definitely want to keep this up as much as possible as well as do your exercises given by the physical therapist.

You will also most likely be given some sort of prescription for pain. This is where is got sort of tricky for me. I don't do well at all with prescription drugs of any sort and for the most part they make me sick causing nausea and vomiting. I don't do so well with over the counter drugs as well like tylenol, nuprin, advil or bayer aspirin so I did not have many options available to me or so I thought. Of course, if this is your case, you already feel miserable enough the way it is so adding additional trips to the bathroom is not very desirable.

The following are great alternatives that I used to get me through this period of time after the surgery. They are all homeopathics which means they work in conjunction with your body to help heal the knee faster.

This is for putting on topically, meaning putting directly on your knee externally:

Traumeel - Found in just about every health food store, this comes in both a cream and a gel and can be put on liberally to help the pain and discomfort in the knee.

Arnica - Is a close second to Traumeel, found in health food stores, and also comes in both creams and gels.


The following I used to help with the overall pain I was feeling in my body as well as the knee.

Traumeel - Also comes in liquid and sublingual tablet form and found in the same kind of health food stores.

Arnica - Comes in liquid and sublingual tablet form as well. There will be different strengths so generally go with the one that says 6X however anyone will still work fine. Ask one of the staff at the health food store if you aren't sure.

**The liquid/tablet can be taken up to every 5 minutes according to the pain you are feeling. The great part about the homeopathics is that they did not make me sick or cause nausea.

One important thing to keep in mind when taking homeopathics is not to touch them. They work on different principles than prescription medicine, vitamins, or herbs so be very careful not to touch them with your fingers or drop them on the ground outside of the bottle.

If you are taking the sublingual tablets. Take the cap off, shake a few into the cap, and empty the contents of the cap in your mouth. This way you will avoid touching them. Do not chew them up and allow them to dissolve in your mouth.

I have suggested to many friends to try Traumeel and they came back and told me it did not work. After a few questions I found out that they were shaking them in their hands like they would a bottle of tylenol and then taking them. This renders the homeopathics useless which is why they were not working for my friends.

The liquid usually comes with a dropper in the lid, so just drip the desired amount into your mouth. Be careful not to touch the tip of the dropper to anything other than the inside of the bottle.

I found that using these options of Traumeel or Arnica both externally and internally during the recovery period after my surgery significantly reduced the amount of time it took me to heal from both the knee injury and knee surgery.

I hope you found this information helpful and please leave a reply to let me know how things are turning out for you.

Best Regards,
Bill