Because I’m going to need one. Knee surgery: one week from today.
I don’t even know how it happened. I was just getting out of my car two Saturdays ago, and my left knee started making a popping sound. One MRI later confirmed it. A torn medial meniscus.
I’ve been spending a lot of my time this past two weeks dealing with all the doctor visits and pre-surgery prep: blood tests, physical, medical history, EKG, hospital interview, etc.
So, what should I be drinking during the days following my surgery to nurse me back to good health? And why? I’ll be happy to entertain pre-surgery recommendations too, if you have any.
You’re going to want something with a big taste impact, to counter any grogginess, as well as some complexity, to hold your attention away from any residual pain.
I’m going to suggest something sherried and cask strength, as a peat monster might prove too, em, medicinal in taste.
Glenfarclas, Macallan or a Redbreast says Dr JC!
Let’s see, what goes well with vicodin? Yeah, you might need to take a couple days off of the whiskey until you lower the pain killer intake. When you’re ready, it seems like Knob Creek would be the way to go – I guess “knob” makes me think of a knee…
Did you know that the anti-biotics, which you will undoubtedly be taking after they fix you up will noticeably change you’re sense of taste and smell. It’s true. Given that I would say something big and peaty– I know you love the Corry so there’s that. But then again maybe you’ll smell enough phenols in the hospital. So perhaps something sherried. How about Glenfarclas 21. I manages the trick of being soothing and invigorating in equal parts. Good luck by the way
One minute, three comments– wow!
Laphraoig; it smells so medicinal, it must work like a medicine!
I think you should open something special you’ve been saving. Something old. That way when you’re lying on the couch, uncomfortable, with your throbbing knee, you can put on some Miles Davis, nose your fine malt, and remember that with life’s ‘downs’, there are its ‘ups’. Hope you have a speedy recovery.
Four Roses OBSO. And I agree with Andy based on personal experience. When I was on three pills/day, it only took one sip to realize the the two don’t mix ;-(
Slainte, and wishing you a speedy recovery.
LKouis
Big glasses of water, John. And lots of ‘em.
Definitely a laphroaig, you need the medicine!
I agree with drinking nothing for awhile, don’t really want to have pulmonary depression and stop breathing, not the best thing for a person!
The days prior to surgery, I’d recommend something strong and beastly, like George T. Stagg.
Best wishes for a completely successful surgery, excellent care and a quick recovery. Have HP 30 in the library?
Lots of water first.
Sorry, but minimize the alcohol during the antibiotics and pain meds.
Consider a good Gin in the afternoon for the fabled medicinal properties of the botanicals, and mainly because your sense of taste will be “off” for a few days for several reasons.
Eat real Wasabi for the antibacterial properties, and the strong heat will cut through the medications blocking your senses of taste and smell.
Do the physical therapy!
Your recovering…treat yourself to the good stuff. I just tried the 28yr Hirsch Bourbon and holy cow what a whisky. Enormous on the palate and the finish goes on for miles. A great way to sit back and take a few days to get your thoughts back together.
Thanks everyone for the well wishes and the great recommendations so far. Just to clarify. I definitely won’t be drinking anything if I’m on pain meds. I had this same procedure done on my other knee four years ago. I don’t plan on being on pain meds after the first day or so. And I won’t be on antibiotics unless something goes wrong.
And yes…lots of water too!
Oh, so you ARE a sensible person…Whew!
Coming from 25 surgeries to date, my recommendation is not to drink at all for a while. Let your body rest and recover. Alcohol will only slow down the body’s recovery rate as it tries to cram ethanol through your liver. Stick to water, fruit juice, and sports drinks.
Once things are getting better…then it’s time to go big or go home. Pour a healthy dram of something with wallop. I’d go with Booker’s for a bourbon or a cask strength Ardbeg, like Uigedail.
This is the only good recommendation so far. Alc is a poison for your body. You need your full fitness to recover. Any alcohol will reduce your ability to recover.
When you are able to walk wothout sticks, I would suggest to start dramming again. And! You have to go with a zero-level into hospital.
Wish You the very best
Horst
Yikes. Recommending caloric drinks as “healthy’ is always a mistake. And anything with high fructose corn syrup is in the same range of hepatotoxic as ethanol. Read up, please.
Sports drinks (like Gatorade) don’t have high fructose corn syrup in them in powder form. I always drink the powdered stuff because the bottled is way too sweet (thanks to the HFCS) They have sucrose, fructose, and glucose, three rather basic sugars. They also have electrolytes that the body will need to continue healthy function while recovering. Sorry, should have clarified.
Also, if I really have to remind you about moderation on a website like this, for shame.
One more time: Recommending caloric drinks, AKA poison, as part of any health/recovery regimen is a serious error. Yes, very strenuous exercise requires some replacement of glucose, sodium, and other minerals, yet obviously John Hansell will be recovering from knee surgery, not running scores of sprints on a hot summer afternoon.
No one, repeat, NO ONE needs to buy sports drinks, unless they’re proud of being taken in by yet another corporate health claim and want to spend money to support an economy based, in part, on food faddisim and the bizarre advertising that helps perpetuate it. How might one go about getting enough electrolytes? The answer is a shocker, so strap yourselves in: Eat food. Vegetables and fruits, even smoked meats. There are few questions about what to eat that cannot be answered with Michael Pollan’s simple dictum: Eat food, mostly plants, not too much.
For general health, one must add stepping away from the idiot box (now playing 14-20 inches from your face) to get some exercise. And if you can muster up the skepticism to be critical of every single claim made to get you to part with your money, especially regarding health claims on processed food packaging, optimal health can really begin to flower.
Sorry for the way-off-topic rant, but seeing caloric drinks touted as something healthful, rather than decried as poison, makes me see red.
“No one, repeat, NO ONE needs to buy sports drinks, unless they’re proud of being taken in by yet another corporate health claim and want to spend money to support an economy based, in part, on food faddisim and the bizarre advertising that helps perpetuate it.”
Henry, as I am recovering from violent, debilitating food poisoning, I found your very strong statement about sports drinks hilarious.
I have been unable to eat solid food for 3 days now, and only started keeping down soup yesterday. You know what kept my body hydrated and provided those very simple sugars necessary for me to function? A sports drink, cut with water. As it turns out, this sports drink cut with water was a very helpful way to cover my most basic bodily needs (short of an IV) while unable to eat, and contained the very same ingredients as other electrolyte solutions such as pedialyte (and was cheaper).
Just because you are unable to fathom a use for a sports drink doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Have you ever been through a surgery? I’ve been through 25 and trust me, the last thing I want to do after coming out of general anesthesia is to cram a healthy portion of meat, vegetables, and starches down my throat. I look forward to eating a healthy helping of dried beef and fruits. If you think that sports drinks of all kinds are bad for you no matter what, then how do you feel about whiskey? Whiskey doesn’t even have any redeeming physical qualities in this instance. So why do you feel justified in recommending whiskey but heavens above, don’t let that heathen Sports Drink pass his lips! On top of opioids, no less.
Look, I for one can’t sit around and drink water all day without shrieking. I need a bit of variety. Fruit juice is nice but too much juice will have just as devastating effects as sports drinks in the same quantities. I’m not sure why you’re so against drinks of this nature considering sports drinks are typically a recommended post-operative fluid to be taken.
Alcohol and Health
http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/AlcoholAndHealth.html
Sugar Is a Poison, Says UCSF Obesity Expert
http://www.ucsf.edu/science-cafe/articles/obesity-and-metabolic-syndrome-driven-by-fructose-sugar-diet/
Sugar: The Bitter Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
I don’t know; I’m stumped. (pun intended.)
Thanks for taking ownership of your word play. So many people are unnecessary ashamed of their wit.
So does that mean that lawschool drunk has a leg up on John?
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Oy, I kneed a drink! Anything good in this joint?
You guys are worse than I am with the puns. I can’t think of anything to “cap” that!
If these pun’s get any worse, people will have a bone to pick with you.
Well, John could hire lsd and sue us for bad advice, but he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
He could definitely afford me; I take whisky samples as payment! But I’ll only work for him if he really kneeds me.
Well, when I do start drinking again, it will be because I want to. I would never use whisky as a “crutch.”
Hi John,
Sorry to hear you need to have the knee done – and without even a really good story on how you banged yourself up at that!
Something big, peaty and sherried, but not overly medicinal – I’d say the PC5 if you still have some.
Wishing you a speedy recovery.
First off I hope things go well. I look forward to seeing you in New York monday.
I would go with beer over Scotch because the body can digest it better than food and digesting takes a lot of energy. I would get a bottle or two of the reverend from Avery.
If you can’t have alcohol why not get a nice ginger beer, brewed lemon-aid, or dandelion soda? If you live near an African immigrant community you can get something called limon-gin which is ginger, lime, and sugar and makes ginger beer seem like water. I love drinking it on a cold cause you can’t NOT taste it. Also there are a lot of interesting Jamaican drinks made from seaweed and other botanicals that are supposed to make men more sexually potent. My favorite is called “agony” (no joke) and it’s made with Irish moss and peanuts and despite what the name suggests it’s actually quite pleasant.
Maybe right before your surgery there can be a thread where we can all recomend a short youtube video that you can watch when bed ridden
For the day or two when you’re on meds, you could at least pour a tiny bit of something with a big nose, and just relish that for a while. I’m thinking George T Stagg or something very peaty.
Ouch… good luck with the surgery and recovery! Maybe you hurt/weakened it shoveling that driveway of yours you mentioned in a post from this winter??
Like Red said, definitely something with lots and lots of flavor (read: peat). If your sense of smell/taste is indeed affected by the meds, then go for something with strong/blunt/intense flavor and not much detectable complexity (Ardbeg Supernova).
And for your pre-surgery-dram… since surgeries are always scary, go for that bottle you’ve always wanted to open, but just haven’t gotten the chance!
Always a Lagavulin 12 yo Cask Strength.
You forget everything that happened to you.
You only smile the knowing smile, from somebody who knows he has liquid gold in his hands.
Cheers!
And I am probably going the same course. Just waiting for an appointment for the scan.
I too had a big “knack” in my knee.
I’ve had both of mine done, John, and you won’t be off your feet more than a day. They want you moving ASAP. The surgery will be a breeze; it’s the rehab that’s taxing. No antibiotics is good. I know this is going to sound juvenile (and I’m old!), but I make it a point to mix alcohol with pain meds! Whoever tells you otherwise is full of it. Your experience sounds like it tends the other way, though…too bad.
The medicinal whisky suggestions are right on the money, and I also like the George Stagg idea, but I’ll go the other way and recommend a wheater, perhaps Old Weller Antique 107. Clean, powerful, and drinkable. Need I say more?
Good luck, man!
I think it’s gotta be a Laphroaig. Iodine and medicinal chemical complexes should speed up the reconvalescence. But of of course this is only if you can still are willing to accept even more “hospital” aromatics after the surgery. Otherwise, I would go for any true sherry monster like a Glendronach Revival.
Anyway, I wish you good luck for the surgery!
Given med-related palate stress and a probable hiatus, I’d say some familiar old favorites to ease back in. My experience suggests things will taste a little weird for a while.
Good luck John! Just take it easy on whatever you choose. I had my upper leg bone crushed in my knee joint leaving a soda cap sized hole. (Army)… anywho.. until my last (7th) surgery where they finally put metal over it.. the only thing that would kill pain there was.. Tequila. I could be just 1 shot.. whisky, beer, wine – nothing.. but something in that Agave that worked wonders. So I suggest a nice sipping tequila first.. then enjoy your whisky. Just make sure it’s 100% Blue Agave and doesn’t have a worm in it!
It may not work for you, since it’s not a bone injury.. but what have you got to loose trying?
Water and pain pills…for obvious reasons.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery, John, along with an invigorating rehab program. Nice to see all the informed warnings here about combining central nervous system depressants. Also loved seeing sam k’s contrarian point of view. In moderation, a little ethanol with your opioids is just what the doctor ordered. So to speak.
Go Henry! Got any spare opiods?
You should mix all those recommendations into one drink. Pass out, have surgery and wake up when the knee is ok again.
Skip the alcohol when you’re on recovery meds. The body is a water-cooled machine. It needs water more than a hot-running car does, as it can’t heal without it. Alcohol dehydrates tissue and leads to a lower immune response (which is good for fighting post-surgery infection) and lower overall tissue healing speed.
Drink a lot of water. Once 5-7 days have passed and you’re out of the woods on secondary infection risks and your hospital-filled prescription of pain killers is empty, I’d switch to LOW amounts of a nice, strong whisky of whatever suits your fancy at the time. There are cultures worldwide that revere whisky as a restorative and curative. They can’t ALL be wrong…. right?
Hey what happened to that Rum resolution? A nice tall, cold, rum drink is just the thing for sitting on the porch contemplating your mortality.
And yeah, avoid mixing booze and vicodin. Not really the opioids in combo with alcohol that is the problems, but the tylenol (acetominophen).
Personally, I prefer the analgesic properties of alcohol to tylenol/opioids, anyway, and get off that junk as soon as possible.
Agreed, Eric…never acetaminophen and booze. Opiods only!
I would suggest caol ila 12. It has a nice soft flavor that should encourage one to rest and impart a soft mellow buzz. Cask Strength is right out as i find CS’s impart a buzz that is more akin to a narcotic effect.
George T. Stagg should do the job
10 y/o Laphroaig cask strength. Rub some on your knee real good. Both before and after surgery.
Awesome suggestion!
Walk (or roll/hobble) into your local bar, ask for a dram of their house whisky, neat. Taste it, and remember how fortunate you really are to have the career you have. That should brighten your post-surgery spirits.
Plenty of water, but also Laphroaig Quarter Cask..the good ‘ol Laphroaig “medicine” plus pears and bananas. How can you go wrong? Good luck!
I had back surgery in January and I drank Sheep Dip. It complimented the percocet nicely!
And good luck John! Arthroscopic procedure? I had mine done about 5 years ago. Piece of cake.
Yes, arthro. I guess compared to back surgery, just about anything is a piece of cake…Thanks for the encouragement.
Go Gary! How can one not admire a like-minded substance consumer?
Thanks sam! I was lucky enough to be able to work from home so I had no worries about driving.
Thanks again, everyone, for your well wishes. I’ve had both shoulders operated on over the years, and the other knee. I guess you could say I’m balancing things out here, surgury-wise. But still, I’m growing a little tired of it all.
My old boss from 25 years ago told me that youth was wasted on the young. I now know what he was talking about.
Truer words John. Despite the multiple surgeries and advancing years I still don’t think of myself as old. At least my parents are older than me.
I’ve told my kids for years that if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. None of us is dead yet, so it speaks to our durability in the face of adversity.
I look forward to your report on your first-post surgery whisky!
I’d say “That which does not kill you leaves you crippled and begging for mercy”….but that’s just me.
Glass half empty, Mr. TH? Funny nonetheless!
I would join the ‘no alcohol but lots of water’ advice as much as your work situation allows. And if it has to be, then whiskies with low ABV.
‘I’ve had growing pain in my right shoulder since start of 2010 and had to limit my time at the computer. Thus I’ve only been able to follow this blog and not contribute. I had an MRI a couple of days ago which showed bursitis and impingement. This follows a frozen (left) shoulder 8 years ago. Luckily no operations so far. Both conditions were probably exacerbated if not caused by calcium deposits which were (not) helped if not caused by unhealthy eating and drinking habits. I thus try to now have not more than one dram or two per week, with little other alcohol.
So when’s the surgery? I’ll be thinking of you. Many blessings!
Can’t speak to bursitis, but the surgery now for impingement is a relative morceau du gâteau, provided it’s done before the damage is too bad. I’m glad I didn’t have it done when I first had trouble 25 years ago, when it would have been far more invasive, but there’s no reason to suffer with it now. You couldn’t even find my scars.
Thanks, MrTH. My greatest worry is that I may have to cancel my trip to Scotland next May. I’d be really inconsolable.
Bruichladdich 21yo, 46%, a lovely dram, sherried characteristics, warm, sweet, nutty and long finish, excellent medicinal whisky without the “doctor’s garage” phenolic character of some others. Layers of flavour come through slowly – and yes I have sipped this as a “getweller”.
A lot of the business of recovery is helped by a good state of mind. I hope a dram or two, at the right time, help brighten the day and ease the discomfort.
George T. Stagg. It would serve as a pre-surgery whiskey as well.
@ #5 Marc , Good Call.
…only one way to go…SUPER NOVA and get a quart of what ever the gas passer is using….’on we go’
Well, I have decided one thing for sure. Monday night I am hosting a whisky tasting in NYC. After that, I’ll be abstaining from alcohol for at least one week: the three days leading up to surgery, the day of surgery, and at least the three days after the surgery, depending on how my recovery goes.
But after that, I will be ready for a good dram!
Went through the same thing late last Summer. You’ll do fine… probably better than you imagine.
What to drink? Primary consideration: something within easy reach. Secondary: something that you can contemplate and savor for an extended period of time (Cuz time will slow down for a while.)
Good luck & enjoy!
Will you be able to attend the Whisky Fest in Chicago. Should we bring some crutches for you or better yet a wheelchair?
Good luck with the surgery
I hope to be back functioning well before then. Thanks though for the offer.
Good luck with the op. Never mind the pain medication, I’m not sure you’ll be up for drinking for a day or two. Also, if you did need antibiotics, which you probably won’t, there’s only a very small group of them that prohibit you from drinking alcohol.
Anyway, it’s a very successful operation… I’m a veteran of five knee operations (two bucket handles on my miniscus one other cartilage injury and two ACL reconstructions). The procedures get better and better as they make advances. Hopefully you’ll be up and running in no time, but you probably know all this already.
Go mbíodh biseach ort gan mhoill
John
Good luck for your operation and enjoy a few good drams a few days before the operation.
As mentioned by a few, no whisk(e)y for at least 1 week. When you are off medications, just start with “regular” whiskies to calibrate your palate, before moving progressively to more complicated whiskies.
Cask strength bourbon will get you up and running in no time. Wild Turkey Rare Breed should work nicely.
[...] I noted here last Friday, I’m having knee surgery tomorrow, so I won’t be posting tomorrow. Since [...]