I had the same experience as the other posters in terms of pain control while in the hospital. Between the pain ball and the morphine pump, my pain was well-controlled. (And I agree that the pain ball does cause a strange numb feeling, but it goes away. I only have some slight numbness around my incision site now.) I also did fine with the pain meds I was discharged on (same ones referenced above), but after about 3 weeks, I started getting to the point where I wanted to move forward with my recovery a little more, and the meds were so sedating. So I started pushing myself to not take them as much. I don't know if that was smart or not, but I ended up doing OK. Those first few weeks, I took them pretty much as prescribed because I was trying to stay on top of the pain.

I started PT right away after surgery (range of motion and stretching only - no strength training of any kind). I think that helped a lot. My early sessions were mainly just massage and very slow movements. I started driving again after about 4 weeks and went back to work part-time at 4 1/2 weeks. I probably could have used about another week, but overall I don't think I compromised my recovery. I was in PT for about 9 months.