Post Operative Physiotherapy at Megazee.com in Manchester

Two things decide what happens to a repaired knee, shoulder or hip in the first six weeks: what the surgeon did, and what you are allowed to load. Your protocol answers the second question, and it outranks how ready you feel. Tissue that has been stitched, screwed or cemented keeps a timetable that enthusiasm cannot renegotiate.

Post operative physiotherapy is the work of using every bit of range, load and movement the protocol does permit, and using it early. Megazee.com runs this as a structured service in Manchester alongside the other physiotherapy pathways we offer. If what you want is a sense of whether your own recovery is on track week by week, read what recovery looks like month by month. This page is about how the programme itself is built and run.

What your surgeon decides, and what physiotherapy decides

Four things belong to your surgical team, and we do not move them:

• Weight-bearing status. Non-weight-bearing, toe-touch, partial, or weight-bearing as tolerated. We need to know which one you are on and the date it is due to change.
• Range limits. A knee brace set to open between 0 and 90 degrees for a stated period. A shoulder protocol holding external rotation at neutral while a cuff repair heals.
• Brace and sling rules. Whether it comes off to shower, to sleep, or to move the elbow and wrist.
• The date rehabilitation may begin, and anything specifically forbidden until review.

Inside those boundaries, the rest is ours: which muscle gets retrained first, how quickly load climbs, what we do when a joint swells the day after a session, and when to hold a phase rather than promote you into the next one.

Prehabilitation: the weeks before your operation

If your surgery is still ahead of you, prehabilitation at Megazee.com is the cheapest fortnight of rehabilitation you will ever buy.

A knee that cannot fully straighten going into an operation rarely straightens easily coming out of one, so extension work comes first. Quadriceps that still switch on before surgery tend to be far less stubborn afterwards. Shoulder patients spend the time building range they will not be allowed to chase for several weeks post-operatively.

The practical half matters just as much. Practise crutches on your own stairs while you still have two working legs. Work out which side of the bed you will get out of. Move the kettle, the mugs and the chargers to worktop height. In our experience the people who find the first fortnight least miserable are the ones who rehearsed it.

What Megazee.com needs before your first post-operative appointment

Bring, or send ahead:

• The operation note or written protocol. A phone photograph is fine.
• What was actually done. Repair or debridement, graft type, cemented or uncemented, anything unexpected during the procedure.
• Weight-bearing status and range limits in writing, with the dates they change.
• Complications and current medication, including anticoagulants and anything for pain that might mask how a session has gone.

Without paperwork we work to the most conservative reading of a standard protocol, which means a slower start than you probably need. One phone call beats six weeks in the wrong lane.

Inside a session at Megazee.com: what actually gets measured

Appointments open with measurement rather than with how the week felt. Range is taken with a goniometer, not estimated by eye. Swelling is a tape measure around the joint compared against the other side, recorded every visit, because a joint that is reliably larger the morning after a session is telling you the dose was wrong.

The most useful early test after knee surgery is the straight leg raise. If the heel lifts but the knee sags on the way up, the quadriceps has not fully switched back on, and no amount of squatting will hide that lag. After a cuff repair the equivalent question is whether passive range is being maintained without you recruiting the shoulder to get there.

Then treatment: hands-on work where scar tissue and guarding are limiting movement, the exercises for the phase you are in, and a short home programme you demonstrate back to us before you leave.

How a post-surgical programme is phased

Each phase has an entry requirement rather than a calendar date.

• Protect and switch on. Swelling control, range within the permitted limits, waking the muscle that shut down around the joint.
• Rebuild plain strength. Two legs before one leg, body weight before added load.
• Build load tolerance. The same work, repeated, then repeated when you are tired.
• Train the specific task. Stairs without the rail, kneeling in the garden, lifting a grandchild, reaching a high shelf at work, or a return to sport.

Where that ladder ends depends on the operation. Rehabilitation after ACL reconstruction runs longest and finishes with objective testing rather than a conversation. Rotator cuff repair rehabilitation has a protected early phase in which someone else moves your arm for you. Recovery following joint replacement for osteoarthritis is the most predictable of the three, and the one people abandon early because walking feels normal well before the hip or knee is strong.

How often you will be seen, and for how long

Appointments sit closest together in the first few weeks, when the protocol changes often and technique matters most. They space out as the programme becomes something you run yourself between review points. That is a deliberate handover, not us losing interest.

Post-surgical rehabilitation is measured in months, and most people are surprised by the length rather than the intensity. Megazee.com does not sell blocks of sessions in advance. We give you a realistic shape at the first appointment and revise it out loud rather than quietly. You can read what we charge and which insurers we work with before committing to anything.

When to contact your surgical team instead of a physiotherapist

We work to your surgeon’s protocol, and anything concerning about the operation itself goes back to your surgical team first. Contact them, or NHS 111, rather than waiting for your next appointment if you notice:

• Signs of infection. A wound becoming red, hot, more painful or leaking fluid; the wound opening; fever or shivering; pain that had been settling and is now clearly worsening.
• Possible clot, which is more likely in the weeks after surgery. Calf or thigh pain, swelling, warmth or redness. Call 999 for sudden breathlessness, chest pain or coughing blood.
• A sudden pop, snap or giving way, with immediate loss of something you could do the day before.
• A limb turning pale, cold, blue or numb, or a cast, brace or dressing that feels dangerously tight with increasing pain or pins and needles. That is an A&E visit.
• Pain not controlled by your prescribed medication, or a joint replacement that feels unstable.

That list is not exhaustive. If you are unsure, call NHS 111. Our medical disclaimer sets out the limits of anything you read on this site.

Booking post operative physiotherapy at Megazee.com

You do not need a GP referral to book privately, even for post-surgical work. Every clinician at Megazee.com is registered with the Health and Care Professions Council and practises as a chartered physiotherapist, and the NHS explains what physiotherapy involves if this is your first course of it.

Wear or bring something that lets us see the joint: shorts for a lower limb, a vest for a shoulder. Tell us when you book if you are on crutches, in a brace, or need a ground-floor room. You can arrange an assessment at our Manchester clinic, or speak to a physiotherapist before you book if you would rather check we are the right fit for your protocol first.