Week 1 Knee Replacement Recovery Is About Safety and Acclimation
My biggest suggestion for Week 1 after knee replacement surgery is to understand that this week is all about getting acclimated to your new knee and learning how to manage it, along with your assistive devices, safely.
This is something you don’t see in any medical paperwork sent home.
Because we’re taught to prep, prep, prep. Buy the toilet risers. Buy the assistive devices. Buy the ice machines. All the things.
But really, it comes down to simple mechanics we do every single day.
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If you’re here because it’s the middle of the night and sleep feels impossible after your knee replacement, you’re not doing anything wrong. This is one of the most common and frustrating parts of recovery, and it’s rarely talked about in a way that actually helps.
Why You Can’t Sleep After Knee Replacement Surgery
By far the biggest complaint outside of pain that I hear after a knee replacement is the inability to sleep. I had this myself for the first six weeks after my first knee replacement. The only way it seemed that I would sleep is directly after taking my pain dosage.
I would also find myself dozing throughout the day, and I often wondered if that’s what kept me from sleeping at night. But it didn’t really matter because at some point either the nerve zinging or the deep ache would get me to get out of bed for my first knee replacement.
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What if your biggest setback isn’t your knee — it’s your thoughts about your recovery?
That realization changed everything for me.
I remember the day it hit me. I was about six weeks out from my second knee replacement and realized I still wasn’t consistently hitting zero on my extension. Some days I’d get to 3 degrees, maybe 5 — but never zero. And that tiny number became a massive mental storm.
My calf hurt constantly. My foot and ankle were cranky. But the calf pain? It was brutal.
And I remember thinking something must be wrong. Something dire.
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We’ve spent all week talking about how knee replacement recovery is a lot like taking a vacation.
On Monday, I laid the groundwork for that whole idea — how seeing recovery through a different lens can make the process feel less foreign and a little more familiar. It literally changes your perspective and for me it was the little boost to take the heaviness out of the surgery that week leading up to my replacement. Check out the Introduction to this blog series here.
Tuesday, we talked about traveling solo, and how this is ultimately a one-person job. This was an important concept to me because there comes a point in your recovery where it's your strength that's gonna push you through on your range of motion and extension.
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