Part of Total hip replacement rehab
Hip replacement recovery timeline: the windows, not a schedule
Warning signs, and when to get help
What is the hip replacement recovery timeline?
Months, not weeks. The useful part of a hip replacement recovery timeline is its shape, because the total tells you almost nothing about what you will be doing in February.
The published figures come in two kinds, and they get quoted as though they were one. The early kind describes getting your ordinary day back: OrthoInfo, the patient site of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, puts most normal light activities of daily living back within 3 to 6 weeks of surgery. The late kind describes being recovered, and it is far longer: the NHS says it may take several months, Hull University Teaching Hospitals puts full recovery at 6 to 12 months, and Newcastle Hospitals says it may be up to 12 months before you can do all your activities easily. Anyone who told you a hip replacement takes 6 weeks quoted the first kind and dropped the second.
Every number below belongs to whoever published it, and every one describes a group of people, not you. The NHS advice and the hospital leaflets here were written for people having a hip replaced in the UK, and the OrthoInfo figures for readers in the United States. All of them describe a planned first replacement of the whole hip, which is the operation most people reading this have had. If your hip was replaced after a broken hip, or you had a partial replacement or a second operation on a hip that was already replaced, your plan can be quite different and these numbers do not carry across.
Your own surgical team outranks the lot of it. They know how they reached the hip, what they found while they were in there, how much weight they want through that leg and what else you are dealing with. Two of those limits are theirs to set and not yours to feel for: how much weight goes through the operated leg, and how far the hip is allowed to bend and turn. Where their estimate and these figures pull apart, plan your life around theirs.
The charts all leave out one sentence: recovery does not arrive in a straight line. A good week followed by a stiff, sore day after you did more than usual is the ordinary shape of this, and it is the commonest reason people in clinic believe they have gone backwards when they have not. That part is practice experience rather than a published finding, but the published work points the same way: when researchers have followed people week by week after this operation, they have found several recovery curves and not one.
The first days, in hospital
This window is short, and the four main sources disagree about how short it is, so be careful about measuring yourself against any one of them. The NHS says that if you are generally fit and the surgery went well you can usually go home around 1 to 3 days after the operation. Newcastle Hospitals says people are usually discharged within 24 hours. Hull goes further again: most people now are safe to go home either the same day as the operation or the next day, with a longer stay sometimes needed by those who are frail or who have several medical problems. OrthoInfo treats it as a decision to settle with your surgeon beforehand, because you will either be admitted for at least one night or go home the same day.
That spread is not confusion. It is fast-track surgery arriving at different hospitals at different times, which is why the leaflet from the hospital doing your operation beats all four.
Getting upright happens sooner than most people expect. NICE recommends that a physiotherapist or occupational therapist offers rehabilitation to people who have had a planned first hip, knee or shoulder replacement on the day of surgery if possible, and no more than 24 hours after surgery (NG157, recommendation 1.10.1). Hull says that very often by the end of the day of surgery you can walk with sticks without assistance, and that most patients leave walking with two sticks. Whether you go home on a walking frame or walker, on crutches, or on two sticks or canes depends on the hospital and on you, and when you can walk without a stick is the question that follows this one.
The first two weeks at home
The fixed point in this fortnight is the wound. The NHS says a nurse takes out your stitches or clips after about 10 days. OrthoInfo puts the removal of stitches or staples at approximately 2 weeks after surgery, and Cambridge University Hospitals, Newcastle and Hull all describe a dressing removal or wound check at around 2 weeks. So the real answer sits between about 10 days and a fortnight, depending on who operated and how they closed the wound.
Expect this to be the sore end of the whole thing. OrthoInfo says some discomfort with activity and at night is common for several weeks. Hull asks you to take the painkillers regularly for the first couple of weeks and says it is usually possible to stop the strong ones after a couple of weeks. If they are not holding the pain, or you want off them sooner, that is a conversation with whoever prescribed them or with your pharmacist. Never stop or change a prescribed medicine on your own, and that applies just as much to the tablets, injections or stockings you were given to lower your clot risk, which run on for weeks after this operation by design.
The work in here is small and frequent, not hard. Newcastle asks for short distances around the house and garden in the first 2 weeks, and Cambridge wants you up on your feet for a short walk once an hour through your waking day. The exercises for weeks 0 to 6 covers what the early program is for and how often it is usually done, and the full hip replacement rehab program has the stages and the doses.
If you were given hip precautions, this is the fortnight they bite hardest, and what you were given depends on how the surgeon reached the hip rather than on some universal list. Hip precautions and how long they last is the page for that, including how to find out which approach you had, because most people do not know and it changes the list.
Weeks two to six, and the week that feels like going backwards
If there is a bad stretch, it is usually in here, and it catches people out because it turns up after a decent start.
The sources explain the timing better than they probably meant to. Hull describes the pain and swelling as starting to improve after about 3 to 4 weeks, which puts weeks 2 and 3 before the improvement, not inside it. Cambridge puts wound healing at 4 to 6 weeks and the healing of the ligaments and soft tissues around the joint at 6 weeks, with a further 6 weeks after that for them to strengthen, and it says the stiffness and soreness may last a few months. So the tissue timetable and the way the hip feels are not the same timetable, and the feel lags behind.
Walking aids come down in stages in here, and on judgement rather than on a date. Cambridge notes that some people discharged on crutches are down to a single crutch by about week 2. Gateshead Health sets a condition instead of a week: once you are confident on elbow crutches, which a reader in the United States or Canada would call forearm crutches, and can walk without a limp, you move to one crutch in the hand on the opposite side to the surgery.
Researchers have put numbers on how differently this window goes for different people. A diary study of 94 people after fast-track hip replacement had them score their own hip every week for 6 weeks and found three recovery curves, not one, running from fast through average to slow, with the slow curve belonging more often to women, to older people, and to those who had rated their health lower before the operation and needed more help afterward (Porsius and colleagues, 2018). The useful part of that is not which group you are in. It is that a single week-by-week chart was never going to describe everybody in the first 6 weeks.
In clinic the pattern repeats: the pain settles before the limp does, and the limp is the part to take to your physio or physical therapist instead of waiting it out. Some extra discomfort during the exercises and for up to an hour afterward is normal (Gateshead Health), and the pain monitoring model is how to judge how much is acceptable. A day worse than the day before, after a busy day, is not evidence of damage. A week worse than the week before it, with nothing to explain it, earns a phone call.
Six weeks to three months
Six weeks is where the paperwork of recovery clusters, which is why it feels like a finish line and is not one. The appointments land here. The NHS puts the follow-up at around 6 to 12 weeks after surgery, Hull says a member of the team will see you within 6 to 12 weeks, and Newcastle and Gateshead both put their follow-up clinic at 6 to 8 weeks. Driving has a floor rather than a date: the NHS asks you to wait at least 6 weeks and to check with your doctor that you are fit to drive. Reaching 6 weeks does not make anyone fit to drive, and driving after a hip replacement goes through what is actually being judged. One item on the NHS list for this window rarely gets quoted and is worth having: it asks you to try to avoid sex for 6 to 8 weeks after the operation. If you were given hip precautions, the positions they rule out are a question for your team rather than something to work out by feel.
Work is where the sources part company, and both halves are worth seeing. The NHS says going back usually takes about 6 weeks but will depend on the type of work you do. Newcastle narrows that to the job: light work, or a desk job, is usually safe to go back to within 6 weeks in most cases. Hull, writing about the same operation, says it takes 3 months on average and occasionally 6 or even 12 months, and that about 1 in 20 people do not return to work at all after a hip replacement. Those are not really contradictory, they are differently framed, one a floor for a desk job and the other an average across every job there is.
Activity opens up unevenly. Newcastle says low-impact sport such as cycling, swimming or golf can usually be resumed gradually after 6 weeks, and asks you to stay out of public swimming pools for 6 weeks, off long haul flights for 3 months and out of the bath for 3 months. Hull puts swimming at 6 weeks and golf or the gym at 8 to 10 weeks as walking distance improves. Those are two hospitals' house rules, not universal ones, and that is exactly why yours may read differently. The exercises after 6 weeks is the window where the strength work gets harder, and some of it depends on the approach, so it is gated on your team and not on the calendar.
Three months to a year
Twelve weeks is the marker most people actually feel. Cambridge says most pain and swelling should have gone by then, most patients can walk without aids, and most really feel back to themselves, although it adds that improvements can continue for over a year. Day-to-day life comes back around here: gardening, light housework, longer walks, dancing.
Then it goes quiet, and that stretch is the one people are least warned about. Cambridge puts full healing and strengthening of bone and muscle at up to 6 months, and says that at 6 months almost all patients are greatly improved but may not have full stamina. Hull says it is normal for swelling to persist for 3 to 6 months and puts full recovery at 6 to 12 months. Newcastle says it may take up to 12 months before you can do all your activities easily. Stamina is the laggard in every one of those accounts, so being wiped out by a walk that used to be nothing at 4 months is the described pattern and not a failure.
Not everything in this stretch is a stage that passes. OrthoInfo says the risk of dislocation is greatest in the first few months after surgery while the tissues are healing, which is the reason care around the extremes of movement outlasts the way the hip feels. And for the long term, OrthoInfo says most surgeons advise against high-impact activities such as running, jogging or jumping, so what you take back up after a year is a question for your surgeon rather than a date on a chart.
Does your age change the timeline?
Not into a separate schedule. There is no age-banded chart out there to fail against. OrthoInfo says there are no absolute age or weight restrictions for this operation, that most patients having one are 50 to 80 years old, and that recommendations for surgery rest on a person's pain and disability rather than their age. Neither the NHS recovery advice nor any of the hospital leaflets used here sets out one set of weeks for a 60 year old and another for an 80 year old.
Research has looked at it across much larger groups. In 6,030 people in the Dutch Arthroplasty Register, scored up to a year after surgery, three patterns came out: fast starters, who were the large majority at 87.7%, slow starters at 4.6%, and late dippers at 7.7%, who improved first and then slipped back. Being over 75 was among the factors associated with that late-dipping pattern (odds ratio 1.62, 95% confidence interval 1.22 to 2.15), along with smoking, obesity, a higher anesthetic risk grade, and worse self-rated health and more difficulty with self-care before surgery (Hesseling and colleagues, 2019). The authors' own closing point travels with the figures: every one of the three groups improved after the operation. One thing to take from the late-dipping half of it, though: a hip of your own that improves and then goes the other way is a reason to ask for a review rather than a pattern to sit out, and the warning signs below say how quickly.
Read all of that as associations across thousands of people, not as a forecast for anyone in particular. What actually differs with age is less the calendar than what you take into the operation. Starting strength, other health conditions and steadiness on your feet vary far more between two 80 year olds than between a 55 year old and a 65 year old.
One risk does climb with age, and OrthoInfo is blunt about it: a fall in the first few weeks after surgery can damage the new hip and may result in a need for more surgery, and it calls stairs a particular hazard until the hip is strong and mobile. It asks you to use a cane, crutches, a walker or handrails, or to have someone help you, until your balance, flexibility and strength have improved. That is the real reason the walking aid stays longer than it feels necessary. Strength for older adults and balance and falls prevention are the two programs that belong alongside this recovery, not after it.
Plan for a fall as well as against one, and this part matters most if you are at home on your own. Keep your phone in a pocket rather than in another room, so you can reach it from the floor, and ask about an alarm you wear. If you do fall and cannot get up, or you think you may have hurt your head, neck, back or hip, stay where you are, keep warm and call emergency services, or get someone to call for you. Do not let anyone haul you up first. That line and the rest of the fall routes, including what to do if you got up fine and only hurt later, are in the warning signs below.
If you are at the younger end, nearer 50, the same figures still describe you, since 50 to 80 is where OrthoInfo says most of these operations happen. What tends to differ is what you want back, and that is a conversation for your surgeon, not a timeline.
What actually sets your timeline?
Your date of birth is a long way down the list.
At the top of it is the operation itself. How the surgeon reached the hip, how the implant was fixed and whether this was a planned first replacement all feed in. The approach matters most for what you are allowed to do, and the lists differ enough that no single page can hand you yours, which is why hip precautions and how long they last covers both the restrictions and how to find out which approach you had. Your discharge letter or hospital leaflet usually names it, and the team can confirm it at your follow-up; the scar is a clue to ask about rather than something to decide from.
There is also registry evidence that the approach tracks with the shape of recovery, and it needs handling carefully: in the Dutch study above, a direct lateral approach was associated with the late-dipping pattern (odds ratio 2.18, 1.58 to 3.02) and an anterior approach with lower odds of slow starting (odds ratio 0.47, 0.29 to 0.78). That is an association in a register and not a trial. Surgeons pick an approach for reasons a register cannot see, including the shape of your hip and what they expect to find, so it is not a league table and not a reason to wish you had had a different operation.
What the lateral route does to the tissue is worth knowing, because it explains the early weeks rather than the final result. That approach goes through the muscles on the side of the hip that hold you level when you stand on one leg, and part of that attachment is divided and stitched back at the end of the operation. It is a repair, so it has a healing timetable of its own, and it is the reason some teams keep the early work off that muscle for a few weeks and the reason the limp can outlast the pain. One small study measured it: hip abduction strength was lower 2 and 6 weeks after a direct lateral approach than after an approach from the back, with no difference left by 3 and 6 months (Ansari and colleagues, 2023). That was 42 people finishing follow-up at a single hospital, so treat the timing as a rough shape and not a schedule. It does not change what to do about a limp, which is to show it to your physio rather than wait it out.
Next comes the health you took into the operation. The factors that came out of the Dutch registry alongside age were smoking, obesity, anesthetic risk grade, worse self-rated health and more difficulty with self-care and with anxiety or depression beforehand. The diary study found its slow group had rated their own health lower before surgery and needed more help afterward, and Hull names several medical problems or frailty as a reason a hospital stay runs longer. None of those is a verdict. They are the reason two people the same age recover at different speeds, and most of them are the reason the weeks before the operation are worth using well.
Biggest of the lot is your team's plan. It decides more of the calendar than anything else here. Weight through the leg, how far the hip may bend and turn, and the date each limit changes are your surgeon's to set, on their timetable rather than on the day the hip starts to feel ready. NICE also expects self-directed rehabilitation to come with a clear understanding of your rehabilitation goals and a point of contact for advice and support (NG157, recommendation 1.10.4). If you came home without either of those, asking for them is reasonable.
When is slow just slow, and when should you ask for a review?
Direction beats position. A recovery that is going slowly is still going somewhere from week to week, and a recovery that has stopped moving is a different animal: it is the one that needs a phone call, not patience.
Going backwards is stronger again, and it is the one pattern on this page that should never be sat out. A hip that was improving and is now getting worse week by week, or pain that had settled and has come back, is not a slow version of ordinary recovery. The parts of a new joint can loosen or wear, and a new joint can become infected, including years afterward, and both of those announce themselves as pain that returns or builds rather than fades. Those are in the warning signs below with the speed each one needs, and the slower of them is a review and not a wait.
Some of this comes with a timescale attached by the sources themselves. OrthoInfo's line is to call your doctor if the pain has not started to settle within a few days of the operation. The warning signs below carry the rest, with the urgency each one needs. Walking or movement that has stopped improving over a week or two, a limp you cannot shift, or exercises you simply cannot manage, is in there as a review in the next week or two. Pain, redness or swelling in the hip or leg that is not improving or is getting worse is in there as a same-day matter, because an infection around the new joint and a blood clot can both look like that.
If you are working at it on your own and getting nowhere, NICE says supervised group or individual outpatient rehabilitation should be offered to people who have difficulties managing activities of daily living, who have ongoing functional impairment leading to specific rehabilitation needs, or who find that self-directed rehabilitation is not meeting their rehabilitation goals (NG157, recommendation 1.10.5). That is a recommendation you can quote at an appointment. What to do while you wait for physiotherapy covers the gap if there is one.
Use the follow-up appointment for the question a chart only pretends to answer: is my hip where you would expect it to be at this point, and if not, what do you want to do about it. Take something specific: the number of minutes you can walk, or the staircase you still cannot manage, not a feeling.
A few changes do not belong on a timeline at all. Sudden severe hip or groin pain with a leg that looks shorter or turned, sudden breathlessness or chest pain, a calf that becomes swollen, warm or tender, a wound that leaks or gets more painful, a temperature, or a hip that becomes hot, red or swollen: every one of those is in the warning signs below. A temperature is not the test for an infection around the new joint, though. OrthoInfo names increased pain or stiffness in a joint that had been working well among the signs of an infection around a new joint, says the signs can be as little as mild redness and swelling, and says fever is no longer considered a sign of one. And the warning signs after a hip replacement takes them one at a time. If you are recovering from a knee replacement too, the knee replacement recovery timeline is the matching page, and the two operations do not recover at the same pace.
Related exercise programs
Warning signs
Get emergency help now
- Emergency: sudden severe pain in your hip or groin, sometimes with a clunk or pop, and you cannot move the leg or put weight on it, or the leg suddenly looks shorter or turned in or out. Do not try to walk on it or push it back into place. Keep still and call emergency services or go to an emergency department, and do not drive yourself. Your new hip may have come out of its socket (dislocated), and a medical team needs to put it back.
- Emergency: your operated leg looks shorter than it did, or its foot turns in or out more than before, or the hip moves in an unusual way, even if the pain is not severe. Keep your weight off it and go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. If you are in severe pain or cannot move the leg, call emergency services.
- Emergency: you have just fallen and cannot get up, or you think you may have hurt your head, neck, back or hip. Stay where you are, keep warm and call emergency services, or get someone to call for you. If you got up and walked without trouble and only notice pain later, use the same-day lines in this list instead.
- Emergency: you have had a fall or an injury and now have severe hip pain, or you cannot walk or put weight on the leg. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department. This can be a sign of a broken hip (hip fracture).
- Emergency: since your operation, you suddenly become short of breath, you get chest pain or pain in your upper back that may be worse when you breathe in, you cough up blood, your heart is beating very fast, or you faint. Call emergency services straight away, even if your leg looks normal. These can be signs of a blood clot in the lungs (pulmonary embolism).
Get help today
- Same day: after a fall or a knock, even a small one, your hip, groin or thigh is newly painful, bruised or swollen, even if you can still walk and your leg looks normal. Stop the exercises, go back to your crutches or frame and keep your full weight off that leg, and contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. A break in the bone around a new hip is not always obvious at first, and walking normally on one can move the broken ends apart.
- Same day: a calf or thigh that is newly swollen or getting more swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, has swollen veins that are sore to touch, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that does not fit your injury or condition, or that feels different from normal muscle soreness after exercise. This can be a sign of a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis), especially after surgery, an injury, time in a cast or boot, a long trip or a spell of being much less mobile than usual. Get medical advice the same day. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
- Same day: you are taking tablets or having injections to lower your risk of a blood clot and you notice blood in your urine, black or bloody stools, bleeding gums, a nosebleed that goes on and on, bruising far beyond what the knock would explain, or you are being sick or coughing up blood. Get medical advice the same day, and do not stop the medicine on your own. Bleeding more easily is the known trade-off of these medicines (NHS), and the dose or the type may need looking at. Go to an emergency department if the bleeding will not stop, you feel faint, or you bang your head while you are taking it, even if you feel fine, because the NHS advises getting urgent advice after a head injury on medicine that thins your blood and only a hospital can scan for a bleed inside the head.
- Same day: your wound becomes more red, hot, swollen or painful, starts to leak or ooze, is still leaking in the second week or has never stopped, has pus coming out of it or its edges start to come apart, or you have a high temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. Redness can be harder to see on brown or black skin. If you feel very unwell, go to an emergency department. If you have a very high or very low temperature, shivering you cannot control, you are breathing very fast or finding it hard to breathe, you are confused or your speech is slurred, your skin, lips or tongue look blue, gray, pale or blotchy (on brown or black skin this can be easier to see on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet), or you have a rash that does not fade when you press it, call emergency services, as this can be sepsis.
- Same day: in the days or weeks after your operation you are getting more and more tired, breathless doing everyday things such as walking to the toilet or getting dressed, dizzy or lightheaded, your heart is racing, or your skin looks paler than usual. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. Tiredness and breathlessness that build up like this are not part of the usual recovery. Blood loss during and after a hip replacement can leave you short of red blood cells (anemia), which is treatable, and a slow bleed or an infection can show up the same way. If breathlessness comes on suddenly, or you get chest pain, call emergency services, as the emergency line above explains.
- Same day: dizziness, lightheadedness, blurred vision or feeling faint when you stand up that is new for you, does not pass within a minute or two, keeps happening, or has made you fall. Sit or lie down, and get medical advice the same day. This can be a drop in blood pressure on standing (postural hypotension), a type of low blood pressure, which the NHS lists among the causes of falls, and your doctor can check it. Tell them about your medicines, because some can cause it. If it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting or lying still, call emergency services. If you faint, call emergency services, even if you come round quickly, because the NHS says to call them when someone faints while exercising or is badly hurt, and a faint onto a new hip can dislocate it or break the bone around it.
- Same day: dizziness or feeling faint during or after exercise, other than the brief lightheadedness as you stand up covered in the line above, without any of the emergency signs above. Stop the exercises and get medical advice the same day. If you faint, it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting still, or you cannot stand or walk steadily, call emergency services.
- Same day: since your operation, the pain, redness, warmth, tenderness or swelling in your hip or leg is not getting better or is getting worse, for example the hip pain keeps building both when you move and when you rest, or you have a new throbbing or cramping pain in your hip or leg. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day, as this can be a sign of infection around the new joint or a blood clot. If you feel very unwell, go to an emergency department.
- Same day: at any time after your operation, even years later, new pain in your new hip along with a high temperature or feeling hot, cold or shivery, or a hip that becomes hot, red or swollen, which counts on its own, with or without pain and with or without a temperature. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. A new joint can become infected long after the operation, and that needs treating quickly. A normal temperature is not an all clear: OrthoInfo says fever is no longer considered a sign of an infection after a joint replacement, that the signs can be as little as mild redness and swelling and sometimes there are none at all, and that increased pain or stiffness in a joint that had been working well is one of them. So do not wait for a temperature before you report new or increasing pain in your new hip to your surgical team.
- Same day: your hip clunks and feels as if it partly slipped out of place and went back, even if it settles straight away and your leg looks normal. Stop the exercises, avoid the movement that brought it on, go back to your crutches or frame, and keep away from deep bending, crossing your legs and twisting on that leg until you have been seen. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. If the leg then looks shorter or turned, or you cannot move it or put weight on it, call emergency services.
- Same day: you felt a pop, a snap or a sudden tearing pain over the side or the back of your hip, or your hip will not lift the leg out to the side any more, or it will not hold you up when you stand on that leg, so your hip drops or you lurch to one side. Stop the exercises, go back to your crutches or frame, and contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. Muscle and tendon are cut and stitched back during a hip replacement, and a repair that has given way needs assessing rather than exercising. If you cannot put weight on the leg at all, or the leg looks shorter or turned, call emergency services.
- Same day: a leg or foot that is getting weaker, for example your foot drags, catches on the ground or slaps down when you walk (foot drop). Get medical advice the same day. If the weakness is getting worse by the hour, go to an emergency department.
- Same day: new numbness, tingling or burning in your operated leg or foot, beyond the numb patch of skin around your scar. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. If it started after a fall or an injury, or your foot or toes turn cold, pale, blue or gray, call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself.
Book an appointment
- Within a few days: you have had a fall, even if you were not hurt, or you keep tripping, stumbling or feeling that your legs might give way. Book an appointment with your doctor within a few days and ask about a falls assessment. Tell them about every fall, even the ones where you were not hurt.
- Routine: since the operation your leg has felt a little longer or shorter than the other one, with no sudden change and no new pain. This is not unusual after a hip replacement. Mention it to your physio or at your follow-up appointment, as some people are more comfortable with a shoe raise.
- Routine: pain in your new hip that had settled and has come back, or pain that is getting worse month by month, for example in the groin or thigh when you first stand up and start to walk. This is not an emergency, but ask your surgical team for a review, as the parts of a new joint can loosen or wear over the years. Get medical advice the same day instead, not a routine appointment, if the hip also becomes hot, red or swollen, or you have a high temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery, or the pain is building week by week rather than month by month. A new joint can become infected years after the operation, and the two can feel similar at first.
- Routine: your walking or movement has stopped improving over a week or two, you still limp badly, or you cannot manage the exercises your team gave you, but your pain, redness and swelling are not getting worse. This is not an emergency, but ask your physio or surgical team for a review in the next week or two.
Common questions
How long does it take to recover from a hip replacement?
It depends on which recovery you mean, and that is where most of the confusion comes from. Getting your ordinary day back is the early figure: OrthoInfo puts most normal light activities of daily living at 3 to 6 weeks after surgery. Being recovered is the late one: the NHS says it may take several months, Hull University Teaching Hospitals puts full recovery at 6 to 12 months, and Newcastle Hospitals says it may be up to 12 months before you can do all your activities easily. Both figures are true and they are not describing the same thing. Your surgical team's estimate for your hip, knowing which operation you had, is the one to plan around.
What does hip replacement recovery look like week by week?
As windows rather than weeks, because no two hospital protocols line up. The early days are about getting upright and out of hospital, which the NHS puts at 1 to 3 days and Hull describes as the day of surgery or the day after for most people now. The first fortnight has the wound check in it, at about 10 days according to the NHS and about 2 weeks according to OrthoInfo, Cambridge, Newcastle and Hull. Weeks 2 to 6 are where walking aids come down, usually on your physio's judgement rather than a date. Around 6 weeks the appointments and permissions cluster, 12 weeks is where Cambridge says most people walk without aids and most feel back to themselves, and the last of the strength and stamina runs on into the 6 to 12 month range.
Is recovery slower at 70 or 80?
The patient-facing sources do not publish a separate schedule by decade, so there is no age-banded chart to measure yourself against. OrthoInfo says there are no absolute age or weight restrictions for this operation, that most patients having it are 50 to 80 years old, and that recommendations for surgery rest on a person's pain and disability rather than their age. Research has looked at it across large groups: in 6,030 people in the Dutch Arthroplasty Register, being over 75 was one of the factors associated with the pattern the authors called late dipping, where people improve at first and then slip back (odds ratio 1.62, 95% confidence interval 1.22 to 2.15), alongside smoking, obesity and worse health before surgery, and all three groups still improved (Hesseling and colleagues, 2019). Read that as an association across thousands of people rather than a forecast for you. What differs most at any age is starting strength and steadiness on your feet, and a fall in the first few weeks can damage a new hip (OrthoInfo).
Is it normal to go backwards in week three?
A sore, stiff day after a good one is the ordinary shape of this recovery, and in the clinic it is the most common reason people think they have gone backwards when they have not. The timing fits what the sources describe too: Hull says the pain and swelling start to improve after about 3 to 4 weeks, which puts weeks 2 and 3 before the improvement rather than inside it. A day worse than the day before, after you did more than usual, calls for going back to yesterday's amount and telling your physio. A week that is worse than the week before it, with nothing to explain it, is worth a phone call. Pain, redness or swelling that is not improving or is getting worse is a different thing and it is in the warning signs below as a same-day matter.
How long before I can go back to work?
The sources genuinely disagree here, so it is worth seeing both. The NHS says going back to work usually takes about 6 weeks but depends on the type of work you do, and Newcastle Hospitals narrows that to light or office-based work being usually safe within 6 weeks. Hull University Teaching Hospitals, writing about the same operation, says it takes 3 months on average and occasionally 6 or even 12 months, and that about 1 in 20 people do not return to work after a hip replacement. One is a floor for a desk job and the other an average across every kind of job. If an employer needs a date, get it from your surgeon with your actual job described to them.
Does an anterior hip replacement recover faster?
The approach changes what you are allowed to do more reliably than it changes how fast you recover, and this page will not give you a speed. There is registry evidence pointing that way: in the Dutch study of 6,030 people, an anterior approach was associated with lower odds of being a slow starter (odds ratio 0.47, 95% confidence interval 0.29 to 0.78) and a direct lateral approach with higher odds of the late-dipping pattern (odds ratio 2.18, 1.58 to 3.02). That is an association in a register and not a trial, and surgeons choose an approach for reasons the register cannot see. The practical difference you will actually meet is in the restrictions, since the classic deep bending, crossing and turning-in rules were written for the approach from the back. A front approach is not a reason to assume you have no limits: where it comes with cautions, they usually run the other way, toward taking the leg back behind you and turning it outward, and the list your own team gave you is the one that applies. Hip precautions and how long they last covers that, including how to find out which approach you had.
References
- NHS. Recovering from a hip replacement. Page last reviewed 6 March 2024. https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/hip-replacement/recovering-from-a-hip-replacement/
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Total hip replacement. OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/treatment/total-hip-replacement/
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Infection after joint replacement. OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/diseases--conditions/joint-replacement-infection/
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Joint replacement (primary): hip, knee and shoulder. NICE guideline NG157, recommendations 1.10.1, 1.10.4 and 1.10.5. Published 4 June 2020. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng157
- Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Hip replacement, total: advice and exercises following. Patient information. https://www.cuh.nhs.uk/patient-information/hip-replacement-total-advice-and-exercises-following/
- Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Total hip replacement. Patient leaflet HEY380/2024. https://www.hey.nhs.uk/patient-leaflet/total-hip-replacement-benefits-risks-outcome/
- The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Total hip replacement. Patient information. https://www.newcastle-hospitals.nhs.uk/resources/total-hip-replacement/
- Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust. Physiotherapy following hip replacement surgery. Patient information. https://www.gatesheadhealth.nhs.uk/resources/physiotherapy-following-hip-replacement-surgery/
- Hesseling B, Mathijssen NMC, van Steenbergen LN, Melles M, Vehmeijer SBW, Porsius JT. Fast starters, slow starters, and late dippers: trajectories of patient-reported outcomes after total hip arthroplasty. Results from a Dutch nationwide database. The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (American volume). 2019;101(24):2175-2186. https://doi.org/10.2106/JBJS.19.00234
- Porsius JT, Mathijssen NMC, Klapwijk-Van Heijningen LCM, Van Egmond JC, Melles M, Vehmeijer SBW. Early recovery trajectories after fast-track primary total hip arthroplasty: the role of patient characteristics. Acta Orthopaedica. 2018;89(6):597-602. https://doi.org/10.1080/17453674.2018.1519095
- Ansari S, Singh SK, Regmi A, Goyal T, Kalia RB, Yadav RK, Suresh Gowda AK. Difference in muscle strength and functional outcome in direct lateral approach versus posterior approach in total hip arthroplasty: a prospective cohort study. Journal of the West African College of Surgeons. 2023;13(1):6-14. https://doi.org/10.4103/jwas.jwas_258_22
- University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust. Hip dislocation. Patient information leaflet. https://www.plymouthhospitals.nhs.uk/display-pil/pil-hip-dislocations-4038/
- NHS. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Page last reviewed 30 April 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/deep-vein-thrombosis-dvt/
- NHS. Pulmonary embolism. Page last reviewed 25 May 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pulmonary-embolism/
- NHS. Anticoagulant medicines. Page last reviewed 9 September 2024. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/anticoagulant-medicines/
- NHS. Head injury and concussion. Page last reviewed 29 May 2025. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/head-injury-and-concussion/
- NHS. Sepsis. Page last reviewed 14 May 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/sepsis/
- NHS. Iron deficiency anaemia. Page last reviewed 26 January 2024. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/iron-deficiency-anaemia/
- NHS. Falls. Page last reviewed 6 March 2025. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/falls/
- NHS. Low blood pressure (hypotension). Page last reviewed 11 July 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/low-blood-pressure-hypotension/
- NHS. Fainting. Page last reviewed 17 August 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/symptoms/fainting/
Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-17.
This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.