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By Dr. J. Mandume Kerina
Dr. Kerina and his colleagues have spent their professional life studying how to combat the effects of arthritis. They have helped develop advanced surgical techniques to reliably help to revitalize your life. This has culminated in our current opioid free joint replacement program.
The overuse use and abuse of opioid pain medication has become a national crisis. Studies have shown that a significant number of addiction cases begin with the use of opioids for pain relief after surgery. Utilizing a team approach involving primary care, anesthesia, our surgeons, and the home health team, we have developed a multi- faceted pain management program for perioperative pain control that is opioid free.
Phase one of our program started with the development and adoption of ligament and muscle sparing approaches to the hip and knee. These do not violate nerve, artery, or muscle planes. These approaches have changed our postoperative pain profile and significantly lessened our patient’s dependence on opioids.
Phase 2 followed with the development of a series of long-acting nerve blocks that are effective in alleviating pain for 48 to 72 hours covering the post-op pain profile.
Phase 3 followed with the development of our opioid free anesthesia protocol which allows our patients to wake up more alert and oriented in recovery to begin immediate mobilization postoperatively.
Our patients are now able to be discharged home as Outpatient Surgical patients at a much higher functional level than before.
To further explore the possibility of a total hip and knee replacement with Dr J. Mandume Kerina, please contact UNOVA Health at: (352) 973-4070 | unovahealth.com
