Here are three signs surgery might be needed for a leg length discrepancy after knee replacement surgery. Leg length discrepancies are often suspected by patients that have had a knee replacement surgery and when to no surgeries necessary.

Again, in order to correct this can be confusing, but I’m going to clear it up for you right now, the first sign is if you’ve had an x ray that shows more than two inches, which is about the same as five centimeters difference on one leg compared to the other.

The reason for this is that if it’s less than two inches or five centimeters, then usually you can manage with things like insoles on the inside of your shoes, external shoe lifts that where they add height to the sole of one shoe to make that side longer, or even using a cane to offload the shorter legs so that you’re not aggravating that joint so much.

But when the leg length difference is more than two inches, that’s when your surgeon is more likely to get concerned and begin to consider the possibility of having another surgery to correct this problem.

The second reason that surgery might be needed if it’s causing other problems if you have a known leg length discrepancy, and you’re beginning to have hip pain, back pain, knee pain on the other side, or foot and ankle problems or even issues like sciatica, it could be related to that leg length difference and maybe a limp that you’re walking with.

Because of the problem, the more obvious that the leg length problem is causing one of these issues, then that’s going to be more reasons that your surgeon might consider doing a bone resection which is how they adjust the leg length height surgery in order to help this problem.

And the third reason is if you’re willing to have another surgery of bone resection surgery to correct the leg length, and the risks associated with it in order to get the potential relief, because it may not work out. And there’s a chance that this second surgery could cause more problems or leave you the same.

If the pain that you’re experiencing right now is so bad that you’re willing to take that risk, then the surgeon might also allow you to move forward and considering the surgery. But I guarantee you your surgeon is going to want to see you manage non operatively they’re going to want to see you try the insoles, try using a cane, give it a good go give it a good shot before they look at doing another surgery on top of the knee replacement that you’ve already had.

But what can you do instead of having another surgery, you need to focus on what’s in your immediate control because if you’re just thinking that you have to have a bone resection to correct your leg length discrepancy, and that’s the only thing that’s possible out there, you’re limited there’s other things that can be done, like I said earlier try the shoe inserts to adjust the height, get the external lifts to create a platform on one shoe. In order to compensate for the height use a cane.

And another option could be to strengthen your body appropriately by fixing muscle compensations muscle imbalances, so that you can get so strong that your leg length might even become irrelevant. Think about that thought for a moment. If your body is significantly stronger and your endurance is better.

The limp that you might be having with the leg length problem could become irrelevant to where it doesn’t tire you out as much. It’s not hurting your joints as much because the strength around your hips, your legs, your back. Everything is so strong that it protects against damage from a little bit of a limp because of a leg length discrepancy.

I talk about this at length on my channel here, I talk about muscle imbalances and how they affect people after they’ve had a knee replacement. You can learn more about it by checking out the playlist I’ve linked in the description below. It’s called the knee replacement help playlist.

There’s also a program called the failed knee replacement recovery program. I’ve also got a link for that down in the description below. If this video was helpful for you, please give it a thumbs up.

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