Whole foot and ankle on my operated side has BALLOONED at 3 weeks. Normal or am I ignoring a clot?

#1sylvia1966(Joined Jun 2026 · 2 posts)July 6, 2026, 10:10 pm

Right hip, 3 weeks ago tomorrow, and I need someone to talk me down or tell me to ring someone.

The pain is honestly fine, I'm on one crutch around the house and pleased with myself. But my ankle and foot on the operated side have blown up like a bread roll. By the evening I don't have an ankle bone, it's just a smooth puffy thing, and my slipper leaves a dent in the skin. It goes down a bit overnight and then does it all again the next day.

Here is where my brain lives at midnight: everyone drills into you about clots, blood clots this, clots that, and now I've got a swollen leg and I can't tell if this is the normal healing swelling everyone means or the exact thing they told me to watch for. It doesn't especially hurt and it's not red, if that helps. But it's the OPERATED side so of course I've decided the worst. Did yours do this? At what point did you actually ring someone versus just put your foot up?

#2moira1963(Joined Oct 2025 · 8 posts)July 7, 2026, 7:40 am

Sylvia, mine did exactly this and I had the same 3am committee meeting about it. The evening ankle that eats its own bone, the slipper dent, all of it.

The thing that settled me, and please still read what the moderator says and not just me, was the pattern. Mine was worst by evening, better by morning, both improved when I actually kept my leg up instead of promising to and then not. It was puffy but not painful, and it wasn't one calf suddenly bigger than the other with a sore hot patch. That last one is the picture they mean when they say clot, as I understand it. Even, gravity, evening-heavy swelling is a different animal from sudden lopsided painful swelling.

#3pbike60(Joined Feb 2025 · 36 posts)July 7, 2026, 1:22 pm

The dented slipper is a rite of passage. Mine went down to the ankle and foot for a good couple of months, worst on the days I'd been most pleased with how much I'd done, which is its own little lesson in pacing.

Ankle pumps were the thing for me. Foot up and down, hard, a set whenever I sat down, physio was adamant about it and it genuinely shifted the puffiness plus it's doing the clot-prevention job at the same time. Leg up above the hip on cushions for a proper spell, not a token two minutes. But you already sound like you know the difference between "I'll monitor this" and "this is new and one-sided and hurts", and if it ever tips into the second one you don't post here, you ring.

#4trev_lefthip(Joined Jul 2025 · 13 posts)July 8, 2026, 6:05 pm

Rang the ward at week two over mine, felt daft, they were completely fine about it and said they'd rather a hundred normal calls than one missed one. Made the call and never regretted it. That's your permission slip.

#5Ms Priya RamanSurgical moderator(Joined Oct 2024 · 91 posts)July 9, 2026, 9:30 am

sylvia1966 said:

I can't tell if this is the normal healing swelling everyone means or the exact thing they told me to watch for

Sylvia, the reassuring answer first, then the line that actually matters, because you deserve both and not just the soothing half.

The picture you describe, both worse by evening and better by morning, soft, not especially painful, not red, easing when the leg is elevated, is the classic pattern of ordinary post-operative swelling. After a hip replacement the surgery causes inflammation and, once you are upright, gravity carries that fluid down the leg and it pools at the ankle and foot, furthest from the heart. That is why the swelling shows up so far from the scar and why it is heaviest at night. It commonly runs for 3 to 6 months, fading over that time, with some end-of-day puffiness lingering out toward the full-recovery window of 6 to 12 months. Ankle pumps, elevation above heart height, and any compression stocking you were given are the right tools, exactly as the others have said.

Now the line, and it is the reason clots get drilled into you so hard: the risk of a deep vein clot is highest in precisely these early weeks, which is why preventive treatment after this operation usually runs for about 14 to 35 days rather than a few. The pattern that is not the reassuring one is swelling in one leg that comes on or worsens noticeably, usually in the calf rather than evenly down the whole leg, with pain or tenderness, warmth, and sometimes redness. That is a same-day emergency, and you telephone or attend urgent care, you do not wait for morning. Separately, breathlessness, chest pain, or a sudden cough can mean a clot has reached the lung and needs emergency help immediately. And a third, different flag: skin that is hot, red, and spreading, especially with a fever, points more to infection than a clot and also needs prompt attention. On the specific facts you gave, even and painless and evening-heavy, you are describing the normal kind. But you know your own leg, and if it ever changes to lopsided and painful, Trev has already handed you the permission slip, and every ward in the world means it. What I cannot do from here is examine your calf, so if there is any doubt at all in your own mind, that doubt is reason enough to make the call. The plain account of all this, including why the foot and not the hip, is in swelling after a hip replacement, and the wider map of what can go wrong and how uncommon most of it is sits in hip replacement risks and complications.

#6sylvia1966(Joined Jun 2026 · 2 posts)July 15, 2026, 8:12 pm

Reporting back so the next midnight googler finds an ending. I rang the ward the morning after I posted, described exactly the evening-puffy-both-sides-not-painful thing, and the nurse said the same as Ms Raman almost word for word, keep it up, keep pumping the ankle, and call straight back if it ever goes one-sided and sore. It hasn't. A week on it's already less dramatic by evening.

The ankle pumps and actually keeping the leg properly up have made a visible difference. And knowing the exact pattern to fear, instead of just the word "clot" rattling around at 3am, is the thing that gave me my sleep back. Thank you all.