Welcome back to The Hip Replacement Podcast. I hope you're doing well out there. Thanks so much for tuning in.
I want to talk today about something that we're all going through. Some of us more into it than others, but we're all going through this. And that thing we're going through is recovery. All right? Recovery can last a long, long time. I believe that recovery never ends. All right? You're just doing different things one day after surgery, one month after surgery, or five years after surgery, but something's going on.
But in this episode, I want to talk about the trap that many people find themselves in and you may be falling into this trap as well. And here's the trap. It has to do with recovery. People compare their recoveries to someone else's. It's as if we all line up at a start line and then somebody says go or start or a gun goes off like we're going for a race and then everyone takes off in their recovery at the same time. And some people look like they're ahead of you. Some people look like they're behind you. And we gauge ourselves.
This is the trap. We gauge ourselves, our recoveries, maybe our worth, maybe if there's a problem with us based on somebody else, which is a total trap that we should never fall into.
So, let's talk about this.
You know, people hear that someone else and maybe they're reading about it on social networks or whatever, which I have a big issue with. I think social networks and the internet is a big double-edged sword. It could be positive for us, but also very negative. So, we have to guard ourselves from that. But anyway, people hear that someone else was walking without assistance, maybe without a walker or a cane in two weeks, or they're golfing in eight weeks, or sleeping perfectly in a week or a month, back to work quickly, or they claim to be back to what they determine as normal.
And suddenly if we're looking at those other people and we're gauging ourselves by that person, this question comes up.
What's wrong with me?
What's wrong with me? How come I'm not progressing like that person is progressing? How come I'm behind? How come at two weeks I'm not where that person is?
What's wrong with me? And the answer most of the time is this.
Nothing is wrong with you. Nothing.
Recovery simply is not identical from person to person. It's not even identical within one person's own journey.
You can have a strong first two weeks and then hit a rough patch where you're slowing down and you don't seem to be making any progress.
Or you can struggle early like you're not getting anywhere and then make huge gains later.
You can feel great physically but be mentally drained or feel a little bit of depression or feel like you're not doing what you should be doing. All this happens.
Maybe you're walking better, but still not sleeping well.
The point is that you could be ahead in one area and behind in another area, but I don't even like those terms of ahead or behind because there's no one to compare yourself to.
That shouldn't even be a thought. I know it is. That's just human nature. We want to gauge ourselves by some other reference point and that's normal. But we can't let that stop us.
We can't let that slow us down. We can't let that get into our head and give us all types of negative thoughts about ourselves.
So, let's break this down into two big ideas or areas when we're covering varying rates of recovery.
Number one, the first big area, and that has to do with varying rates of recovery between you and someone else, where someone else is your reference point. And then number two, I'll also talk about varying rates of recovery between you and you at a different point in time. A lot of people overlook this, but I'll address that as well.
So, the first big area, we have to realize that different people recover at different rates.
And that should be obvious, but for some reason once surgery happens, people forget it.
Consider this that before surgery, people are different ages, different body types, different fitness levels, different health histories, different pain tolerances, different activity backgrounds, and different expectations.
Okay. So, there's a couple areas within that that I'll talk about.
Number one, age, strength, and starting condition.
A younger person or someone who went into surgery stronger, leaner, and possibly more active may recover faster. We don't have that. If we're looking on social media, we don't have that information. We just see that oh somebody is doing something extraordinary at two, three or four weeks and we're not doing that. We're not able to do that yet. But we don't have any other information about that person.
You have to realize that muscle mass, balance, mobility, and overall health before the surgery can have a huge impact on what recovery looks like after.
Number two, other health issues matter.
When someone goes in for a hip surgery, it's not just the hip. There's a whole patient there. There could be sleep problems. There could be anemia, diabetes, heart issues, inflammation, and other medical issues or conditions that can slow down healing, hurt your energy levels, and make rehab harder and slower than expected or slower than somebody else. So, we have to take that whole patient into consideration.
Number three, surgical differences and possibly complications.
Not every surgery is identical.
I hope you realize that there's several different types of surgeries. There's many different types of surgeries. The surgical approach, the complexity, the choices of the implant, the sizes of the implant, maybe there's been blood loss, pain control, and maybe there's complications. All of these can affect how quickly someone is up again and moving and feeling what they consider normal again or what I would consider the new normal.
Number four, what about the rehab effort and consistency? Do you even have a plan?
I've heard from so many people. I read stuff on social media once in a while that oh my doctor didn't prescribe physical therapy or I'm not doing the physical therapy or I'm just walking or I'm doing nothing.
Well, maybe that's going to have an impact.
Some people have a plan. Some people follow the plan and their rehab with discipline and others may struggle with pain or fear or maybe even inconsistency because we all know that life is full of distractions.
You may have a great plan and you may have physical therapy that you want to do, but what about a job? What about other health issues? What about someone else you're taking care of? All of these things can get in the way of your plan and staying where you probably should be as you try to recover and do your exercises and stretching and mobility exercises. So many things can get in the way.
But regular exercise, walking, strength work, physical therapy, and sticking to the plan can strongly influence the pace of recovery because you're recovering not only from the surgery, not only from that hour when the doctor went into you and made that change, but you're recovering. Your muscles have to recover from the years of you maybe limping around or using those muscles throughout your body incorrectly to move in the least painful way possible.
So there's a lot of things that need to be addressed in recovery and sticking to the plan is helpful. I know it can't always happen.
Number five, this is a huge one too. The expectations and the mindset or the comparison trap.
Two people can have the exact same surgery and describe recovery very differently. Expectations, pain tolerance, confidence, anxiety, and what some people consider as recovered can shape how they experience the exact same timeline.
Another way to define this or to try to explain different expectations, we're not all using the same scale.
Okay? What you think recovery is is completely different than what I think recovery is may be completely different to what somebody else thinks recovery is.
You know, if I'm shooting for the stars or someone is shooting for the stars, they want great mobility. They want no pain. They want no restrictions, that is a much higher bar than someone who just wants to be able to walk around their house or be relatively pain-free or live with less pain than they were before.
Those two are completely different scales. So, when someone says they're recovered, when someone says they're able to do whatever they want, the follow-up question has to be, okay, what were your expectations? And what do you mean by that? But we don't get to ask those questions.
So, when you're comparing yourself to someone else, you're failing to take the scale into consideration.
People can have the exact same recovery progress and one says, "I'm doing great," while the other says, "I'm behind."
Why? Again, because one person expected the recovery to take time, to be difficult, and the other expected to feel, I hate to use the word normal, but normal almost immediately.
The comparison trap gets people in trouble because they compare one detail from someone else's story to their entire lived experience.
You could possibly be comparing someone else's best day to your own hardest day or the collective months or years following your surgery and you know in your mind that oh it's been hard. This day has been okay. That's been hard. This has been easy. I'm getting a little bit better. This is hard. This is hard. This is hard. I don't feel comfortable. I don't feel great. And then you look at someone else, you're checking social media and you're only seeing that person's best day and that's not a fair comparison.
Everyone has their own interpretation of how they are doing based on many factors that only that specific person knows.
Okay, that covers how we compare ourselves to somebody else.
Now, the second big area dealing with rates of recovery, and maybe this is overlooked, is that you can recover at different rates during your own phases of recovery.
I think this is where people really get thrown off.
People may think that recovery should be a straight upward line. Okay? Meaning they may have improved last week and they assume similar improvement this week and then more improvement the following week. But recovery doesn't happen like this.
Here's why one person can recover at different rates during their own timeline.
Number one, here's a couple general ideas. Number one, early wins don't guarantee a straight line.
So, you may feel great in week two after surgery, but then hit more stiffness or soreness or swelling or fatigue or just being wiped out physically and mentally later on, maybe in week four or week six or week 12 or 20 because recovery is uneven.
We have some progress, then we hit a plateau. We might have a setback, maybe more progress, plateau, progress, setback, on and on and on. It's not progress every week.
There could be progress every week, but in some areas, but not everything is going to feel consistently better every week.
Number two, the pain or swelling and energy change over time.
The recovery, remember this, the recovery is not just about the hip, the wound healing, closing up and healing, the pain levels, the inflammation, sleep quality, and energy can rise and fall. And maybe what you're eating has something to do with this. Maybe your underlying vitamin and mineral levels or deficiencies can have something to do with this.
Consider that a person may walk better before they sleep better or feel stronger before they feel close to where they want to feel or back to normal.
Number three, activity level.
People progress on different activity levels.
Okay? So, you're doing more the farther away you get from surgery.
So, the activity level can speed up or slow down your progress. Doing too little can slow the recovery. And on the other hand, doing too much too soon can also create setbacks.
Here's a standard cycle. After surgery, many people feel better. They get confident. They overdo it and then they have a setback because they've overdone it and then wonder why they feel worse after a few days or they feel worse in week two, week three, week four than they did in week one. Maybe because they're doing too much.
The bones still have to heal. The wound still has to close.
So that activity level as it changes as you get farther away from surgery will impact how you feel in the future.
Number four, different milestones recover on different schedules.
Okay? So things like walking without assistance or without a cane or climbing stairs or sleeping comfortably, returning to golf or your favorite activity, getting strength back and feeling mentally more normal don't happen at the same time.
One part of the recovery, I may be able to walk faster. I may be able to walk sooner than I can golf. I may be able to sleep sooner after recovery than I feel mentally better after surgery.
One part of the recovery, I should say, can surge while another lags behind. So consider all the things that you want to get better at after surgery. Feeling more positive, feeling more hopeful, feeling stronger, feeling more mobile, feeling more flexible.
Those do not all progress at the same time. And if we're not paying attention to that, some of those elements may be ahead while some of the other elements may be behind. And we might not realize that and we're only focused on the ones that are behind. So that may feel like we're not where we're supposed to be, but keep in mind that some of those elements are doing better and the other ones just have to catch up over time.
Number five, the initial recovery can continue for a long time, many months, and a lasting recovery can take a lifetime.
Yes, a lifetime.
A lot of people judge recovery too early.
I've heard it said, I've read in journals and from medical sources that three months is a good time frame for recovery and that improvements can continue for maybe a year.
So someone may recover slowly early on then make major gains later.
I think that recovery timeline gets you about 60 or 70% correct. Meaning you can get a lot of gains in three months and you can get a lot of gains in a year but you cannot stop there because you're not done. If you want a great recovery, that three month and one year checkpoints are not valid because you have more work to do.
So, if you're hitting major milestones, walking or feeling good or doing something that you want to do, those are going to hit differently. And that's why one person can feel slow in say for example week three and much better in week eight or 10 or feel good in month two and frustrated in month three or not feel fully like themselves until much later than they expected.
That doesn't mean they're failing or they're behind. It means they are in the process. There's things that are going on and the rate of getting to those milestones is changing. It's different. You're speeding up. You're slowing down. You're speeding up. You're slowing down.
Number six. Now, some of you may not like this one, but I have to say it. I got to tell it like it is because I've been doing this 10 years more than 10 years for my first surgery and more than 12 years after my second surgery, and I'm pretty active. But here it is.
You may think that after 3 months you're going to be mostly recovered and after a year you're certainly fully recovered, but I'm of the opinion that there is no end to recovery. Recovery just turns into maintenance.
If you think that after three months or one year, you don't have to do any more exercises, you don't have to do any more stretches, and you are going to feel perfect, you're going to feel great for the rest of your life, you may be in for a rude awakening.
It's not like after three months, 6 months, or a year that you totally forget you have a hip replacement and never have any aches or pains or stiffness.
You may be functioning just fine going through life because you're getting used to those aches and pains again, but if you don't maintain your body, including your muscles and your joints, the aches and pains are going to creep back into your life.
They're not going to be anywhere near as bad as aches and pains and stiffness before surgery, but they will come back. Maybe different ones.
So, you may feel good at year one, at the year one checkpoint, but then not so great later.
Why? Why does that happen? Why does my rate of feeling good or why do I feel worse later? Well, it's because those aches and pains have crept back in and you haven't taken care of them. And this is one of the purposes of physical therapy.
Not only so that you recover from surgery and all the damage that was done to the body before surgery as your body compensated, but so you could learn and use those exercises to maintain your body later on and for the rest of your life.
But if you want to feel great and not feel those aches and pains, you're going to need to do a little work.
And it doesn't have to be anything major. Five, 10 minutes a day. That's it.
So, what should we be doing instead of comparing ourselves to others over time?
What should we do instead of looking on social media or reading about other people's great recoveries or their highlight reel of their recoveries or their lives after surgery? Here's what I recommend.
Take a break from social media once in a while. We don't always need to be on it looking at what other people are doing.
And you want to do this. You'd want to take a break so that you can focus on you and not get distracted by others.
It's almost like cleansing your mind.
Take a break. Cleanse your mind. Don't pay attention to what other people are doing.
Focus on what you're doing, how you're feeling, and make adjustments in your plan if you have a plan or take inventory of the good things that are going on with you. Maybe you are sleeping better. Maybe you feel great. Maybe you feel physically strong. Maybe you feel confident. Maybe your mobility is back. Maybe your flexibility is great. Or maybe not in all those things. Focus on yourself for a little while.
Also, rather than comparing yourself to somebody else because we don't know their situation. It's completely different than yours.
Compare yourself to yourself.
But realize that your rate of progress is going to change over time. Sometimes it's going to be slower, sometimes it's going to be faster, and that's all okay.
Ask yourself some basic questions.
Am I doing a little better than I was a few weeks ago? Am I stronger than I was last month? Am I moving better than I was before surgery? Am I building confidence? Am I making some progress even if it's slower than I wanted? That's the game. That's it.
Get a little bit better with yourself, not worrying about anyone else.
Use other people as inspiration for sure, but not as a measuring stick of your progress.
Because your recovery is your recovery. Not your neighbors, not your cousins, not your friends, not the person in the Facebook groups, not the person who says they were back to doing great things. And within six minutes of surgery, they were back to running around. And somehow they climbed Mount Everest in flip-flops and a swimsuit 3 weeks after surgery.
That's great for them. Don't pay attention to that.
That's not your job. Your job is to stay patient, stay smart, stay consistent, and keep moving forward because recovery is not a race. It takes time.
But if you keep showing up, keep doing the work, and keep giving your body and mind a chance to adapt, you may look back a few months from now and realize that you've come a lot farther than you thought. There may be some areas where you still need improvement, but overall, you've come a lot farther than you thought.
So don't obsess over somebody else's timeline, over somebody else's recovery, over somebody else's highlight reel.
Focus on your next step, then on the next one, then on the next one. That's how recovery happens.
I hope this is helpful. Thanks so much for tuning into The Hip Replacement Podcast and until next time, I wish you the best recovery possible. Take care.
