Vinod Dasa, MD, Professor of Orthopaedics at LSU Health New Orleans.
An LSU Health New Orleans study indicates the majority of their post-op total knee replacement patients recovered just as well with Tylenol and anti-inflammatory medications versus opioids to control pain. Professor of Orthopedics Dr. Vinod Dasa said among 144 patients they compared those who took non-opiate pain relief to those who used opioids.
“The patients that weren’t receiving opiates using these kinds of modern protocols, still had excellent pain control and no different pain than the patients in the opioid group,” said Dasa.
Dasa said they specifically looked at patients recovering from total knee replacement because the recovery is considered the most painful. He said that the surgery has improved over time and that also reduces the need for stronger pain relief.
“So, if we can solve this problem and if we can do this for knee replacement, then probably 80-90% of the other surgeries we should be able to kind of understand how to control pain better in those surgeries compared to knee replacement,” said Dasa.
Research indicates that 10 to 15 percent of opiates given post-surgery lead to dependency and addiction. So, by adopting a new post-opt pain relief protocol Dasa said they can reduce the potential for opioid dependency and serious side effects like blood clots and infections.
“And in the context of joint replacements, blood clots, and infections are a big, big, problems. If you have an infected joint replacement, it’s a disaster. So, preventing even one of those can be really important,” said Dasa.
Dasa said they are now adopting a new post-op pain relief protocol at LSU Health New Orleans among multi-disciplinaries like OB/GYN, ENT, neurology, etc.
Their results are published in the Journal of Experimental Orthopaedics, available here.
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