Game Ready

If I had to give anyone going into this surgery any advice at all, it would be to invest in the Game Ready icing machine.  This thing has been my crutch through out my recovery thus far.  Dr. Byrd's office gives you this as an option, but it beats ice packs any day.  How it works is you rent this to bring home with you for two weeks. It was $300 for the two weeks, and insurance will not cover it.  I have known so many people with knee replacements and different types of surgeries that have used similar machines, so I knew it would be worth the price.  I honestly do not know what I would have done the first ten hours without it.  It helps numb any pain, and I really think that I have done so well (with very minimal pain medicine which is important to me) so far with my recovery because of it.

Here's out it works:

This is the machine it self, you fill it with water and ice and it circulates the ice water.

Here is where the ice goes:

Here is the hip adapter (aka my ice pants!)  It kind of fits like a diaper the hose connects to the machine to circulate the cold water.  It also inflates to create a cold compression. It will not go below 32 degrees, but circulates the ice cold water which helps numb a lot of my pain. It has several settings, but my setting is to have it on for 30 minutes and off for 30 minutes. 

My schedule right now pretty much revolves around this device. I wake up in the morning usually to some significant pain (I take one pain pill at night around 11PM, and I pretty much wake up like clock work at 6AM in pain).  I put this on when I first wake up to numb the pain, and then try to go back to sleep for a little bit.   I get up and do my first round of therapy in the morning, spend the day sitting in the game ready, get up and sit at the table for dinner, therapy round number 2, and then spend the rest of the night in the machine before bed.  For the first few weeks it is really important for me to stay off my feet as much as possible.  I will post more about my room set-up advice in another post! I learned in the hotel not to sleep in this bad boy.  I woke up freezing cold in the middle of the night and at that point I need help getting in and out of it.  Now I am pretty good at getting myself in and out, I just need help getting it filled with ice and turning it on.

The final thing that I would advise is using a theraband to help keep your feet together.  They advised me after surgery to limit the external rotation of my hip.  When you lay down and relax your legs and feet they naturally rotate outwards.  This isn't good for the hip joint after the surgery.  Erica gave me a theraband to put around my toes while I'm laying down to prevent this rotation for happening.  It's not tight, but it allows me to relax my legs without worrying about the rotation.

It was easy to bring from Nashville to Columbus in this carrying case.  It has tons of padding so we actually just checked it and got it at baggage claim. No damage!

Tomorrow is my first day of PT! More to come...