Day 2 Post-Op ACL patella surgery - looking for recovery advice
I’m currently day 2 post-op from ACL surgery and have been in pretty excruciating pain since yesterday afternoon when the nerve block wore off. I wanted to share what I’ve been doing to reduce swelling and promote healing, and hopefully get some advice on whether there’s anything I could improve on to get through this phase faster.
So far I’ve been:
- Trying to sleep as much as possible (slept around 10 hours total, but waking up every 2 hours from pain/discomfort)
- Eating a lot of protein and fiber (aiming for around 150g protein/day)
- Drinking plenty of water
- Keeping my ankle elevated with a gap under the knee to maintain full extension
- Doing ankle pumps every hour
- Doing around 50 quad sets per day with 10-second holds (although the pain may make that difficult today)
- Staying on top of my pain medications — mainly Tylenol and oxycodone
One thing I’ve been avoiding is icing. I read online that ice mainly helps with pain rather than the actual swelling/inflammation, and that it could potentially slow healing, so I’ve been trying to save it as a last resort if the pain gets even worse. The medications have been keeping me somewhat functional for now.
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!