Introduction
As a prior athlete, coach and now team physician I understand how important it is for everyone to remain active for their physical and mental well-being. For that reason, I am focused on all aspects of your orthopaedic care including optimizing your pre- and post-operative recovery. This may include prescribing formal physical therapy or “pre-hab” before your procedure to build strength and prevent muscle atrophy, enhancing your body’s nutritional status, and/or leveraging multiple non-operative modalities and technologies to reduce pain and swelling while reducing your need for opioid medications after surgery. Our goal is simple - to help you get back to the activities you love as safely and quickly as possible.
To that end, I am pleased to announce my partnership with the Recovery Shop to assist with your non-operative or surgical recovery. I personally recommend these products and am happy to review any of the available options with you. You will also receive specific recommendations for certain products based upon your surgical procedure in your recovery packets. These products are not covered by your insurance carrier, but you can use funds from your HSA/FSA. Click the link below to visit my Recovery Shop. Please feel free to reach out to Team Trofa with any questions or comments.
Strategies for Accelerated Recovery
- Minimizing Pain and Swelling: Dr. Trofa seeks opioid alternatives to pain management. In addition to an opioid sparing multimodal pain regimen, one of the most effective methods to reduce pain and swelling involves cryotherapy with compression and simple elevation of your extremity. Dr. Trofa’s recovery shop has multiple options for cryotherapy for you to review, but he strongly recommends renting the NICE1 Iceless Cold and Compression Therapy Machine following all surgical procedures and the BoneFoam Zero Degree KneeTM pillow following all knee procedures.
- Joint Mobility: Early mobilization and physical therapy ensures normal joint motion, promotes circulation, reduces the risk of complications, and accelerates your functional recovery. For any complex knee procedure, Dr. Trofa recommends controlled passive range of motion with the Kinetec knee CPM machine.
- Orthobiologic and Regenerative Medicine: Dr. Trofa leverages the latest regenerative therapies such as platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections and bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC) injections which are promising modalities to accelerate tissue healing and augment surgical procedures. If interested, ask Dr. Trofa how your recovery can be enhanced with these modalities.
- Pre- and Post-Operative Nutrition: There is an impressive amount of evidence to support the role of appropriate nutrition to enhance recovery following athletic activities. Surgery should be treated the same, and optimizing your nutrition is one of the simplest but most overlooked modalities that can improve your outcome. The goal in optimizing nutrition is to 1) maintain muscle mass and prevent atrophy, 2) support bone health, 3) enhance immune function and 4) promote healing.
Dr. Trofa recommends a well-balanced diet before and after surgery, particularly one high in protein intake. However, it can be difficult to meet the body’s nutritional needs with food alone and that is why Dr. Trofa recommends the ENROUTE Surgical Nutrition Program for patients. ENROUTE is an evidence based 4-week program containing a specialized formula designed to deliver the specific nutritional demands your body needs to prepare and recovery for orthopaedic surgery. To learn more, watch this short video on why nutrition is important for orthopaedic surgery.
You can order the program online here or by speaking to the Patient Care team over the phone at 1800 619-0783, or through email at [javascript protected email address]
