You have extensive knee replacement surgery—you are in your prepared home and resting in your favorite chair or bed. You have your handy table or nightstand beside you. Are all your knee surgery must-haves there?
Knee replacement rehab is a lot more than rest and exercise—helpful tips like what knee must-haves to have within arms reach can help the recovery go much smoother. Equipment, medication, and other knee surgery must-have items need to be within arm’s reach to help you be more independent, along with helping your knee rest and heal after knee replacement surgery.
Read on for a list of knee surgery must-haves to have within arms reach after surgery.
Walking Aids
Depending on where you are in the recovery process, you will need your walking aid right by your side for easy access. In the early weeks of recovery, this will be a walker. Then, as you process along, it will become a cane or walking poles.
Your Meds
Medication can be a little tricky to keep next to you, but boy does it help not having to get up every time to retake your meds because there are quite a few prescriptions and non-prescription meds for after knee replacement. I personally placed them in a drawer in my nightstand, so my kids wouldn’t get into them, especially the pain meds. Now looking back, having one of the lockable bags would have worked great!
Other Important Knee Surgery Must-Haves
Now we get into the excellent items that you might not have thought to keep next to you. Having all or an assortment of these items within arms reach will help keep you more comfortable, entertained, and prepared without having to have a family member or friend next to you at all times.
Phone: Call family, scroll through social media, but most importantly, have it in case of an emergency that you need to get ahold of someone ASAP.
Remotes: A TV remote was a necessity for me during recovery. I watched ALOT of Amazon Prime and Netflix!
Reading material: Magazines and a new book were my go tos.
Glasses/Glasses case: I did not wear contacts during the early weeks of knee surgery recovery. So keep those glasses or readers close. Going to be on a lot of devices?; blue light glasses are great for that.
Tissues: Depending on when you get your knee replacement surgery, having some tissues around will come in handy… Cough, Cough, Sneeze… allergy season.
Wastebasket: Helps keep your area clean and tidy.
Tablet/computer: The computer might be too heavy or bulky to have next to you, but you should be fine if you have a smaller one.
Laptop bed table: Here is a link to my favorite one. Click HERE
Reacher: A true lifesaver! Trust me, you aren’t very flexible right after surgery. Having a reacher close by to help you with items you might drop is fantastic!
Pillow for your leg: Here is a link to my favorite one. Click HERE
Prepackaged snack: I’m the type of person that needs to eat a little something every time I take medication, so I keep easy prepackaged snacks next to me all the time!
Can you think of other knee surgery must-haves that I don’t have listed here? Comment below. I would love to hear other suggestions!
Until next time, happy healing!
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Hi. I enjoyed ready your blog. I just had a full knee replacement 6 weeks ago and Can relate to a lot of things you’ve said. The only item that I can think of that you don’t have listed is a bathtub/shower chair. It’s SUPER helpful. Especially initially when the pain and meds tire you out and standing for a shower (or even in a tub and trying to get out) is hard. One of the nurses in the hospital recommended it (from Amazon) and I was very glad she did!
I can’t attach a picture of it. I’m going to send it to your email: thealicialouise.com
Thanks!
Thanks or reading! I’m so glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for that recommendation as well! I’m going to work on adding it to one of my equipment posts.
Greetings a few things to add would be a raised toilet seat, cold gel packs with or without compression for swelling and pain control, I prefer the compression to aid in shift of fluids. Compression thigh highs to aid in the swelling. moving sliders of knee glider, I used a therapy strap in my initial weeks until I regain strength in and out of bed also great for therapy sliding. I’m 12 weeks post total knee replacement and yes, the above is still instrumental in my recovery.
Great suggestions!! I still use my therapy strap to help with stretching! A must-have really!