Health Insurance USA Quotes

Typically a healthy patient can go home the same day after having arthroscopic knee surgery. Be sure to talk over the details with your hospital or surgical center. When you are preparing for this surgery, you should adhere to normal precautions. For example, you should not eat or drink after midnight on the night preceding your surgery. Be sure to arrive at the hospital an hour or two before your surgery is scheduled so you will have plenty of time for preparation.

When you arrive at the hospital, a member of the anesthesiology team will meet with you and perform an evaluation to determine what type of anesthesia will work best for you. There are three types that are typically used with arthroscopic knee surgery. Sometimes local anesthesia is used. This just numbs the knee. On other occasions, regional anesthesia is used. This will numb you from the waist down. There are also times when general anesthesia is used. This will render you unconscious for the duration of the surgery.

If you want to, you can watch your surgery on a monitor if you have regional or local anesthesia.

Initially, your orthopedic surgeon will make a few small incisions in your knee. After this, your knee joint will be irrigated with a sterile solution that will wash any cloudy fluid away. This will enable the surgeon to have a clear view of the interior of your knee.

At this point, the surgeon will use an arthroscope to look into your knee and diagnose your problem. The surgeon (and you if you wish) will be able to see an image of the interior of your knee projected on a monitor. This image will enable the surgeon to guide the arthroscope to view the interior of your knee. For surgical treatment, your surgeon will have an assortment of small surgical instruments that can be inserted into your knee through the incisions. Your surgeon may use small clamps, scissors, lasers, and motorized shavers among other sophisticated instruments.

Click here for more on Portland Orthopedics Surgery.

You can count on this portion of the procedure lasting three-quarters to one-and-a-half-hours.

With knee arthroscopy, you can expect some of these treatments to occur:

Synovial tissue that has become inflamed will be removed.

A torn cruciate ligament may be reconstructed.

Loose bone and cartilage fragment removal.

Torn sections of articular cartilage may be trimmed.

Torn meniscal cartilage may be repaired or removed.

When your surgery is complete, your surgeon may suture your incision or simply close it with paper tape. Your incision will then be covered with a bandage.

You will then wait in the recovery room for an hour or two, after which you can have a friend or family member drive you home.

Comments are closed.