Orthopedic health often gets overlooked until issues present obvious symptoms. But by then the problems have become widespread and chronic. Likewise, follow-up care tends to get put on the back burner, which can cause delays in recovery or even re-injury.
Following up with your orthopedic doctor is essential to maintaining your physical health. Regular follow-up visits help ensure that your doctor is aware of any changes and can adjust treatments accordingly. This also helps to prevent further injury or long-term damage to your bones and joints.
Below we will talk about why it is so important to follow up with your orthopedic doctor regularly.
What are Follow-up Visits?
Follow-up visits are doctor visits that occur after a patient has undergone any orthopedic treatment like fracture surgery, cast or joint replacement. During these sessions, your doctor will review any diagnostic imaging that has been taken since your last visit (such as x-rays or MRI scans) to determine whether there have been changes in the condition of the affected joint(s).
Further medical tests may be ordered to confirm a diagnosis and/or adjust treatment plans accordingly if necessary. Depending on the results of these tests, your doctor may recommend changes to medications, physical therapy regimens, and/or lifestyle modifications to help maximize recovery outcomes.
Why Follow-Up Care is Important
Follow-up care is essential for successful orthopedic surgery recovery. It gives your surgeon an opportunity to assess how well you are healing and make sure that you are on track for a full recovery. During these visits, your doctor will also provide guidance on how best to manage pain or swelling, as well as when it’s safe to return to normal activities like sports or exercise.
Your follow-up care may include physical therapy, which helps restore strength and movement in the affected area of your body after surgery. This is especially important if the surgery required any type of joint replacement or reconstruction, as it helps build up muscle strength around the newly implanted joint and ensures that you’re able to move correctly with minimal risk of additional injury.
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Assessment of Condition
Follow-ups are essential to track your progress after undergoing any orthopedic procedures. The new advancements in technology and healthcare have increased the success rates of many orthopedic procedures but are always at risk of having some side effects. In order to make sure your bones and joints are recovering in the right direction; follow-up visits are key.
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Adjustment of Medications
After a treatment gets carried out successfully, a patient needs to continue with the medications to recover properly. However, due to being busy with life, a patient may get carried away and forget the medication part. Through follow-up care, patients can be reminded to be regular with their medicines and look forward to an early recovery.
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Getting Feedback
Feedback from patients is highly beneficial for the medical team taking part in the treatment procedure. Through feedback, you can get to know about the mistakes and even get appreciated for the good work or assistance provided to the patients.
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Detecting Complications
Although the chance is pretty, there is still always a chance of something going wrong with an orthopedic procedure. For instance, improper care or non-healing wound may lead to infection of the bone, which may become a medical emergency. Regular follow-up visits help the orthopedic surgeon screen you for various complications and make sure you recover uneventfully.
When Should I Follow Up With The Orthopedic Doctor?
Here are some situations when it is especially important to follow-up with your orthopedic doctor after an orthopedic procedure. Of course, if you ever feel as though you are in an emergency situation, you definitely need to reach out to us right away or dial 9-1-1 to get the medical attention you need.
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When You Experience Pain
Pain is probably the most common complaint that surgery patients have in the days and sometimes weeks following surgery. Pain is to be expected and can be managed with medication, but an expectation of no pain after a procedure is likely not realistic.1 Plan to manage your pain with medications ranging from over-the-counter medications like Tylenol or Ibuprofen or even prescription pain medications if prescribed by your surgeon.
But if pain is preventing you from getting back to normal after your accident, this is a sure sign that follow-up care is needed. Many times, your injuries will leave you unable to move your body like you did before the car accident. Patients who experience limited movement need physical therapy to regain full function, which is an ongoing process.
Any new pain should be checked out. Bring with you any information you can track about the pain, too. Write down when it began, what you were doing when it started, if any activities make it worse, a description of the pain (throbbing, stabbing, radiating, etc.) anything you have found that brings you relief, and how painful the area is on a pain scale. This can help our professionals know how much pain you are in and where to start looking to properly diagnose the problem.
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After Surgery
Follow-up is always required after orthopedic surgery. Your orthopedist may use diagnostic imaging, such as an MRI, to see how bone and soft tissue are healing and responding to rehab. If something comes up and you cannot attend a scheduled follow-up visit, call to reschedule it as close to your original appointment time as possible.
Also, inform the orthopedic care staff of any pre-existing or co-occurring conditions you may have. These can have an impact on your recovery. As your orthopedist factors these conditions into your treatment, they can prescribe further follow-up care that is safe and appropriate for your situation. For example, diabetes can slow recovery and change factors that we have to look for after any type of surgery. If you happen to have any type of medial issue that could impact how you heal, we need to know about it.
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Tingling or Numbness
Any type of tingling or numbness is your body’s way of telling you that one (or more) of your nerves is experiencing pressure. The sooner these symptoms are addressed, the more likely they are to be treatable. The reason you need to make sure you carefully pay attention to tingling or numbness is this is an easy symptom to overlook. However, it can point to a new problem or even the worsening of a problem we were already aware of. If you notice these issues, even if they come and go, contact our office and schedule an appointment to get seen
How Can I Get Started?
Orthopedic injuries are some of the more difficult and painful injuries you can sustain, and they almost always require one to get proper medical treatment. If you have suffered from a break or fracture, dislocation, knee or rotator cuff injury, seek medical treatment right away.
You will likely be in a lot of pain depending on the complexity of your injury, but even if your pain is moderate, only a proper diagnosis by a professional will be able to determine what exactly has occurred and what needs to be done to remedy things.
The experienced and dedicated orthopedic surgeons at Ventura Orthopedics are here for you. If you need spinal or back surgery, it may be time to consult a medical professional. The experienced and dedicated orthopedic surgeons at Ventura Orthopedics are here for you. We are committed to helping you through any procedure until optimum health, strength and mobility are restored.
Call us today on 800-698-1280 to schedule an appointment.
