Can A Knee Brace Help Chronic Pain After A Knee Replacement Surgery?

Is a knee brace like this helpful for chronic knee pain after having a knee replacement surgery? How long should you be wearing a brace like this? And what type of brace should you get? Because there’s varieties of braces out there. When can you take off the brace and should you be sleeping with a brace on?

I’ll be answering all these questions and more if you’ve had a knee replacement, and you’re thinking about using a knee brace, I just want to highlight that the information in this video is for people that are done going to their doctor, to their surgeon for follow up visits from having a knee replacement surgery and also done with going through physical therapy.

If you’ve done physical therapy after a knee replacement surgery. This is if you’re dealing with chronic knee pain, like you’ve done all the rehab, you’ve done all the follow up care with the doctor and you’re still having problems after having a knee replacement, especially if you’re having certain symptoms, which let me tell you about that next.

The reason why you would look at using a knee brace for chronic knee pain after knee replacement is if you have symptoms like popping, clicking and knocking sounds coming from your knee, especially if they’re becoming more frequent, like they’re happening several times a day, multiple times an hour.

And if you’re having pain associated with any of these sounds coming from your knee, if you’re in that situation, then there’s a good chance that using a brace like this can impact your knee pain. There’s tons of reasons for having chronic knee pain after having a knee replacement. But some of those other reasons like if you’re not having a lot of knocking and clicking, popping sounds coming from your knee, then using a knee brace may not be the most impactful thing for you to pursue.

And there’s other treatment strategies that you need to think about doing so that you can have an improvement in your knee pain and you’re not signing up for revision surgery or dealing with chronic knee pain for the rest of your life. Now let me tell you about what kind of knee brace you should get. Now I like this one right here. Obviously, it’s why I have it. It’s a shock doctor knee brace and the brand isn’t as important to me as what is in the brace. So just to show you the brace here.

This brace has some nice straps on the top and the bottom. But the feature that I care about the most is inside the fabric here there are hinges, there’s brackets, they’re metal brackets that I see I can’t bend to right here because there’s some stiff metal brackets in there. And between the two brackets on either side is a double hinge.

So there’s two hinges that are best for the knee joints. Now this model of shock doctor doesn’t allow you to take the hinges out like they used to. But it’s still a good brace, you just have to wash it by hand to care for it. No brace fits perfect.

So just bear with that you have to understand that the more you pay for a brace because this is like a low to medium end brace, you pay for the higher, more expensive braces, you’re usually just paying for better quality materials, they’re going to last longer. That’s one of the reasons why I like shock doctor because I think it’s a good value for what you’re getting.

A brace like this, if you’re wearing it consistently will last you anywhere from six to 12 months, using a brace that does not have hinges on the side is not going to be as helpful because in the situation where you’re getting all those noises coming from your knee, you probably have loose ligaments, and you need those hinges those brackets on the sides in order to stabilize your knee and take pressure off those loose ligaments to allow them to heal.

But just putting on a sleeve that doesn’t have any hinges or brackets on the sides may offer you some relief. But it likely won’t be as much relief as a hinged brace like this one. When should you be using the brace is another question I commonly get. Basically anytime that you’re on your feet, if you’re going to be doing chores.

If you’re going to leave the house or run errands, you’re going to be doing work outside of the house, if you have to go walk somewhere, and you’re going to be on your feet for any longer than a few minutes at a time, then you should have this brace on so that you’re consistently taking pressure off those ligaments and allowing them to heal to stabilize the loose knee replacements.

If you’re going to be at home lounging around, and you’re maybe just going to get up to go to the bathroom, and then sit back down or lie back down again, then it’s probably okay for you to not have the brace on at that time. Some people do feel like they need to have it on all the time even when they’re asleep.

And that’s okay, as long as you can get comfortable sleeping with a brace on like this at night, it’s totally up to you it’s not wrong. The idea though, is just that you need to be comfortable and get good quality sleep. So if this interferes with your sleep, you probably shouldn’t be wearing it. Now the follow up question to that is how long should I be using the brace for, like a week? A few days a month, years? And the answer to that question is that it really depends on your specific situation.

The guidance that I give my patients to put it in really simple short terms, is use the brace as long as it continues to give you relief. If you feel like you have the brace on and it’s not really changing your situation. Maybe you’re still in pain, but it’s not really improving anymore. Or maybe the pain is gone and you feel good.

In both of those situations, you may not need to use a brace anymore. If you’re still having pain, then there’s probably another problem layered on top of the loose joint that this brace helped you for that you need to address, but you’re going to need a different treatment strategy and the brace is not going to be a part of it, it could be that you still need to intermittently use the brace based on how your knee feels.

If you’re getting more popping, clicking or knocking sounds, then getting the brace back on for a time for a few days might be beneficial for you. And what if the brace no longer benefits you but you’re still having pain? There’s a few troubleshooting things that you need to do.

Number one is make sure that the brace is on appropriately, your kneecap should be right at about where the hole is, it’s going to be sliding down on you all day long. So you have to constantly battle it and pull it up.

Number two is make sure that the straps are on tight enough. It shouldn’t be so snug that it’s cutting off your circulation, but it should feel pretty snug. Most people are not the happiest with wearing a brace, it doesn’t feel comfortable to wear a brace. But you’ll know that it’s tight enough when it’s not sliding down your leg immediately.

And every now and then there’s people that come into my clinic that are wearing the brace upside down. So double check that you’re not wearing it upside down, you just need to look at the logo, see I actually had it upside down, the logo needs to be right side up and very often, there’s a tag at the top front of all knee braces.

And if that tag’s at the top front right above your knee, then you should have the brace on appropriately. Now, if you’ve been wearing the brace for a while and your symptoms are still there, but they’ve plateaued, maybe they’ve improved or maybe they didn’t improve at all, and the brace has been kind of ineffective for the past week or two or longer, then you need to look at doing some of the treatment strategy and the most common treatment strategy that you need to be focusing on is addressing the muscle imbalance.

The root muscle imbalance is typically what sets up too much pressure through the ligaments and the tendons and that causes injury to the ligaments which then can cause the looseness in the knee joint which causes the noise and the pain possibly swelling as well.

So fixing that root muscle imbalance is key in order to keep your knee healthy for the long term so that you’re not constantly having to wear a brace or knocking on the surgeon’s door possibly requesting a revision to your knee replacement, you can learn a lot about fixing the root muscle imbalance for knee replacements here on this channel.

We’ve got a playlist full of videos called the Failed Knee Replacement Help playlist it’s linked down in the description below. And I’ve also got a program called the Failed Knee Replacement Recovery Program that you can learn more about through the link in the description below as well. Thank you so much for watching.

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