Physiotherapy after joint surgery abroad, who took you on once you got back?

#1Alan G(Joined Jun 2024 · 34 posts)July 20, 2026, 8:26 am

Writing this one up properly because it is the part of my shoulder trip I got wrong, and I keep seeing people about to make the same mistake.

The surgery was excellent. The hospital physiotherapist saw me twice before I flew and gave me a sheet of exercises. What I had not arranged was anybody to carry that on at home, and I assumed, without ever actually asking, that I would sort it out in the first week back. It took me nearly five weeks to get seen. By then I had lost movement I then had to fight to get back, and my private physio was fairly blunt about the cost of that delay.

So, for the people planning knees and hips: who did your rehabilitation once you were home, how did you arrange it, and did you organise it before or after you flew?

#2bkk_bound(Joined Sep 2025 · 19 posts)July 20, 2026, 7:41 pm

Hernia so no real rehab, but the same lesson caught me on wound checks. Anything you assume you will "sort out when I am back" takes twice as long as you think and starts from a queue.

#3Margaret F(Joined Mar 2026 · 17 posts)July 21, 2026, 11:35 am

This is the reply I needed to read before I get on a plane in October, so thank you for being honest about it. I had vaguely assumed physiotherapy would follow on from the operation the way it does when you have it done here.

Question, since you have been through it: did you send your physio anything from the hospital, or just turn up and describe what had been done?

#4Alan G(Joined Jun 2024 · 34 posts)July 22, 2026, 7:58 am

Margaret F said:

did you send your physio anything from the hospital, or just turn up and describe what had been done?

I turned up and described it, which was not good enough. She wanted to know what had actually been repaired and what the surgeon's restrictions were, and my exercise sheet did not say. I ended up emailing Bangkok and waiting four days for a reply that could have been in my hand luggage.

Second time round I would ask for the operation note and a written rehabilitation protocol with the milestones on it, in English, before leaving the hospital. Ask for it at discharge, because chasing paperwork across a time zone once you are home is a miserable job.

#5Daniel MarshAdmin(Joined Feb 2024 · 246 posts)July 24, 2026, 9:12 am

Alan's five week gap is the single most common way a good operation turns into a mediocre result, and it is entirely preventable from this end.

The thing to understand is that the referral route you are used to at home usually runs through the operating team, and in this case the operating team is in another country and cannot make that referral for you. So the sequence has to be reversed: find a physiotherapist before you travel, tell them what operation is planned and roughly when you will be back, confirm they will take you on, and only then book the surgery dates around that. It is a fifteen minute phone call that most people leave until they are home and sore.

Two things to carry back with you, and they matter more than any other paperwork: the operation note, and a written protocol saying what you should be doing and by when. Both are covered in knee and hip replacement in Thailand, and the general version of the coming home problem is in aftercare when you get home. Margaret, on your October dates, I would make the physio call this month rather than in September.

#6Lorna McK(Joined May 2026 · 14 posts)July 29, 2026, 6:04 pm

Adding a small practical one. When I rang around for something similar, two clinics asked whether the surgery was being done abroad and one of them said they would not take it on at all. The other did not mind in the slightest but wanted the notes. Worth ringing more than one and asking that question directly rather than assuming a no is universal.