Is It Time For A Knee Replacement?

July 31, 2026

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If you have been suffering from debilitating knee pain for months or even years, it may be time to talk with your doctor about knee replacement surgery.

“If knee pain is starting to affect a patient’s quality of life, or if it is stopping them from doing things that they enjoy, then it may be time to consider knee replacement,” said Ryan Nixon, MD, an orthopedic surgeon with Franciscan Health Center for Hip & Knee Surgery in Mooresville, Ind.

Key Takeaways: Treating Knee Pain

Knee replacement may be worth considering if chronic knee pain affects your daily life.
Most patients try physical therapy, medications or injections before surgery.
Age alone should not determine whether you pursue knee replacement.
Many patients go home the same day as their knee replacement surgery. Recovery typically includes several weeks of physical therapy.

Could Osteoarthritis Be Causing Your Knee Pain?

Most patients undergoing knee replacement surgery do so to relieve pain caused by osteoarthritis of the knee, which causes the cushioning cartilage in the knee joint to break down.

"You lose a little bit of that buoyancy or that cushioning effect in your knee joint, so you lose joint space between your thigh bone, your shin bone, otherwise known as your femur and your tibia," said Nikhil Pandhi, DO, a sports medicine and orthopedic surgeon at Franciscan Health in Munster, Ind. "Losing that space increases as we get osteoarthritis, and osteoarthritis leads to that. So it's kind of a back and forth scenario."

Symptoms of osteoarthritis of the knee include:

Knee pain even when resting
Knee stiffness or loss of flexibility
Knee swelling
Severe knee pain that makes walking or climbing stairs difficult

If you have these symptoms, consider talking with your doctor about treatment options to get your knee pain under control.

What Other Factors Lead To Knee Pain?

Previous knee injuries, loss of muscle mass and weight can also lead to knee pain, Dr. Pandhi said.

"Anytime we gain weight, there are some studies talk about every five pounds, you get an increased pressure on your knee," he said. "These are real things that you can actually treat and do on your own as well, and that also includes loss of muscle mass in your core and your hip, and obviously your quadriceps and your hamstrings. That affects the quality of your knee, the knee pain, what you can actually endure and get by with."

What Can I Try Before Knee Replacement Surgery?

Your care provider will likely suggest non-surgical interventions as a first step in managing your knee pain before discussing a knee replacement.

“There's a lot of things you can do for knees that aren't necessarily surgical,” Dr. Pandhi said.

Conservative treatment options for knee pain could include resting and using heat or ice on the joint and taking over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medications like Advil or Aleve to reduce pain and inflammation. Your provider may also recommend a series of hydrocortisone shots to help reduce joint pain.

Additionally, you may be encouraged to do targeted physical therapy or add exercises at home to improve knee flexibility and combat stiffness.

"People are very familiar with things such as physical therapy to strengthen the muscles," Dr. Pandhi said. "That's always a good first start."

How Do I Know If It's Time For A Knee Replacement?

When these non-surgical treatments for knee pain lose effectiveness, it may be time to consider knee replacement surgery.

"There'll be a point when you have bad enough arthritis where it's a problem in your life, and eventually it'll get to be a problem that can't be managed with medications or injections" said Joseph Maratt, MD, an independent orthopedic surgeon who chooses to practice at Franciscan Health Indianapolis Orthopedic Hospital in Carmel, Ind. "The problem with hip and knee arthritis is that the cartilage surfaces that are supposed to be super smooth surfaces get worn down, And so we have to replace it with something that's just as smooth. And so usually we're going in and removing most of the joint and putting in metal and plastic surfaces that look a lot like that joint."

Age is becoming less of a consideration for knee replacement surgery. While many patients who have knee replacements are in their 60s or older, you don’t have to put off surgery until a certain age.

“We frequently do knee replacement surgery on patients younger than 60, who perhaps had an injury that caused arthritis to develop earlier than it otherwise might have,” Dr. Nixon said.

Request an Appointment

If you're suffering joint pain and loss of mobility, joint replacement surgery may help you to return to an active life. Franciscan Health's orthopedic surgeons successfully perform thousands of hip replacement surgeries each year, helping patients like you get back to the activities you love best.

What Happens During Recovery After Knee Replacement?

Surgical procedures for knee replacement have advanced considerably in recent years – to the point that many patients can go home the same day as their knee replacement surgery.

“Many of our younger, healthier patients can do the procedure on an outpatient basis and don’t need to stay overnight in the hospital at all,” Dr. Nixon said.

To ease recovery, your physician will likely recommend only replacing one knee at a time, even if you have pain in both knees.

"We do a lot of work ahead of time to get patients ready to make sure they're medically ready, but also just prepared for what comes afterwards," Dr. Maratt said. "What used to be an operation where you'd be in the hospital for three days, now you come in on the day of, and most patients go home the same day. They're standing up, they're walking within hours of surgery and yeah, that deep inside joint pain from hip or knee arthritis, it's just gone the day of surgery."

Recovering from knee replacement

After surgery, patients will complete roughly one week of in-home physical therapy. Then, they’ll continue therapy two to three times per week at a physical therapy clinic for three to four additional weeks.

Once physical therapy is complete, knee replacement patients can return to full physical activity.

“Following recovery, patients can bike, swim, walk, play golf, play tennis – practically any activity they may want to enjoy,” Dr. Nixon said. “The only activities we don’t recommend are high-impact activities like running.”

If you’ve been dealing with debilitating knee pain, talk with your doctor about the next steps to get your pain under control – including whether you may be a candidate for knee surgery.

"If you have knee pain, the worst thing to do is, is ignore it," Dr. Pandhi said. "You don't want to ignore it. If your knees aren't working, it's going to affect your overall health. If you can't be active, that is the number one indicator of lack of longevity in many ways. You need to be able to be active, go for walks, enjoy your life. If you can't, that's why we do this. So you have function, less to no pain. We want you to get moving so you can keep your heart healthy, keep your muscles healthy and have a good existence. You don't need to be suffering."

Frequently Asked Questions: Knee Replacement

Does Franciscan Health offer less invasive knee replacement procedures?

Franciscan Health's orthopedic teams offer a number of knee replacement procedures, including Jiffy Knee (a muscle-sparing approach to knee replacement) and robotically assisted surgeries.