Dr. H. Kurtis Biggs

03/31/2026

Sleep is when your body heals, your mind resets, and your energy restores. When joint pain wakes you up every time you shift positions or makes it impossible to find a comfortable spot in the first place, that recovery never fully happens.

Losing 1.2 hours of sleep per night might not sound like much, but over the course of a year it adds up to more than 18 full days of missed rest. That affects everything from your mood and focus to your immune system and long-term health.

Most people don't connect their fatigue, irritability, or difficulty concentrating to their knee or hip pain. They assume it's just aging or stress. But the two are often directly related. When you're not sleeping well, nothing else works the way it should.

Fixing the joint doesn't just fix the joint. It fixes everything that was suffering because of it. If pain is keeping you up at night, it might be time for a conversation about your options. Call The Joint Replacement Institute or visit jointinstitutefl.com to schedule a consultation.

03/30/2026

Pickleball is one of the best ways to stay active, but it's also one of the fastest ways to end up in an orthopedic office if you're not careful. The quick lateral movements, sudden stops, and lunges put real stress on your knees, especially on hard courts.
Here are three tips that can make a real difference:

First, wear court shoes instead of running shoes. Running shoes are designed for forward motion, not the lateral cuts that pickleball demands. Court shoes give you the side-to-side support your knees need.

Second, take the extra step instead of lunging. A deep lunge puts 3-4x your body weight through a single knee. Moving your feet to get under the ball distributes the load much more evenly.

Third, pivot on the balls of your feet rather than flat-footed. Twisting with a planted heel is one of the most common ways players tear an ACL.

If you're already dealing with knee pain that doesn't go away with rest, that's worth getting checked out. The Joint Replacement Institute can help you understand what's going on and what your options are.

03/27/2026

Physical therapy isn't optional. It's where the real results happen!

I see it all the time: patients have a successful surgery, start feeling better, and then ease up on their PT schedule because the pain is gone and life gets busy...but feeling better isn't the same as being fully recovered. The patients who commit to the full program consistently achieve better range of motion, stronger stability, and faster return to the activities they love.

40% of patients quit PT before finishing. Don't be one of them! If you're one of my patients, I won't let you.

Your future self will thank you.

03/26/2026

Imagine this: 47 social events per year. Believe it or not, that's the average number of experiences patients decline because of chronic joint pain. Skipped dinners, canceled trips, rounds of golf they sit out, etc.

Over the 2.7 years the average patient waits before moving forward with surgery, that number climbs to more than 125 missed moments. Unfortunately, those moments don't pause and wait for you to feel better.

My goal is to help patients to get back to the life that pain has been taking from them. If you're ready to stop missing out, The Joint Replacement Institute can help you understand your options. Call us or visit jointinstitutefl.com to schedule a consultation.

03/25/2026

When a patient trusts me and my team with one joint, that means something. When they come back and trust us with a second, that means everything. It tells me that we got it right the first time; not just the surgery itself, but the entire experience from consultation through recovery.

Technical skill matters, but so does the way you treat people. I never want a patient to feel like a number or a case file. Every person who comes through our doors has a life they're trying to get back to, and it's a privilege to help them get there.

Thank you to Nyrma for this review and for trusting The Joint Replacement Institute with your care. Wishing you a smooth recovery and many active years ahead!

03/24/2026

Can you believe March is almost over? The Players Championship has wrapped up, St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, and somehow we're already heading into April. If you haven't had a chance to read the Joint Replacement Institute's March newsletter yet, there's still time.

This issue covers some topics I feel strongly about. We dug into why 94% of joint replacement outcomes come down to four controllable factors...and luck isn't one of them.

There's also a full piece on "prehab" and the 18-day recovery advantage that patients who prepare before surgery consistently see. And for the golfers, we covered exactly what the return-to-course timeline looks like after joint replacement, including why most patients actually play better once the pain is gone.

Interested? Read our March Newsletter here: https://online.flippingbook.com/view/144027809/

03/20/2026

03/17/2026

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

03/15/2026

With The Players Championship wrapping up today at TPC Sawgrass, it's a good time to talk about what golf does to the body and what's possible on the other side of surgery.

Tiger Woods has been through more surgeries than most people realize. His first knee surgery was in 1994 when he was still at Stanford. He ruptured his ACL in 2007 and kept playing for months before finally having it repaired. He won the 2008 U.S. Open on a torn ACL and two stress fractures in his tibia. Then came four back surgeries. Then a car accident that nearly took his leg.

And after all of that, he won the 2019 Masters at 43 years old.

Tiger is an outlier, but the lesson applies to everyone: joint surgery isn't the end of your athletic life. For most patients, it's what finally gets them back to doing what they love. You don't need to win a major. You just need to walk 18 holes without pain, play a round with friends, or finish without limping to your car.

If Tiger can come back from everything he's been through, you can come back from one surgery.

03/12/2026

Going up stairs uses your muscles to lift your body weight. Going down stairs puts compressive force directly through your knee joint as it controls your descent. When cartilage starts wearing down, that compression becomes painful in a way that climbing doesn't.

If you've noticed yourself favoring the railing on the way down, taking stairs one at a time, or avoiding them altogether, that's information worth paying attention to. It doesn't mean you need surgery. But it does mean something is changing in your joint.

Early evaluation gives you options. You can modify activities, strengthen supporting muscles, and take steps to slow progression. Waiting until the pain is constant limits what conservative treatment can do.

Your knees are talking. Listen to them!

03/11/2026

Patients often ask how they can make recovery from knee replacement surgery easier. The truth is that preparation begins well before the procedure itself.

Strengthening the muscles around the knee, maintaining good overall health, and understanding what to expect during recovery can make a meaningful difference in outcomes. Small steps taken before surgery can help support mobility, stability, and a smoother return to daily activities afterward.

Have a question for me or the JRI team? Drop it in the comments or send us a message.

03/05/2026

Quick tip for the week: occasional popping or clicking in your knee can be normal, especially after sitting for a while or during certain movements. But if your knee is making noise consistently, especially if it's accompanied by pain, swelling, or a grinding sensation, that's your body telling you something needs attention.

A lot of patients ignore these sounds for months or years because the discomfort isn't "bad enough" yet to do anything about. By the time the pain catches up to the noise, there's often more cartilage damage than there would have been if they'd come in earlier for an evaluation.

Getting it checked doesn't mean you need surgery. Most of the time, it means you have information, and information lets you make better decisions about activity modification, strengthening exercises, or other conservative measures that can protect your joint and delay or prevent further damage.

Don't wait until a small problem becomes a big one. If your knee is trying to tell you something, listen.