As others have said, do the rehab exercises. The first week is the toughest. For me it was an absolute nightmare, but it was self inflicted. The doc told me there was no way I was going to hurt the knee, so go for as much activity as I could stand. The first week I worked the knee until the pain got to the point I was starting to gray-out. That certainly SUCKS, but after about a week, the pain dropped off to almost nothing and recovery was very rapid. I was 47 years old at the time, and being younger helped I'm sure. The incision was the only thing I had to really worry about after the first week to 10 days. You hear stories of the nightmare of rehab, and it's true, but for me at least, that initial week of hell paid off. If you can take the pain meds DO IT! That will allow you to really push early on. Opiates make me horribly sick so I did it cold and just pushed through, but if I had to do it again, I would just get sick and to hell with the pain. This is my experience, and yours may be different obviously, but this new knee is absolutely the best quality-of-life procedure I have had. No crutches, no walker, cane for a short time, then normal gait. I used the cane for longer than I probably needed to simply because it is so easy and makes such a huge difference in getting around. I'd use a cane everyday even now, but I'm to damned arrogant to do it. Canes are great!
