What Happens to Your Body After a Long Hospital Stay

You final­ly get to go home. After days or weeks in a hos­pi­tal bed, the hard­est part should be behind you — and in many ways, it is. But many peo­ple are sur­prised to find that their bod­ies feel dif­fer­ent from how they did before they were admit­ted. Things that used to be easy, like walk­ing to the kitchen or get­ting up from a chair, sud­den­ly take effort. That’s not a sign that some­thing went wrong. It’s a pre­dictable con­se­quence of extend­ed bed rest, and know­ing about it in advance makes all the difference. 

Duly Inter­nal Med­i­cine physi­cian Dr. Joseph Suther­land shares what to expect phys­i­cal­ly after a pro­longed hos­pi­tal stay, and more impor­tant­ly, what you can do about it.

Pres­sure Sores

When you’re con­fined to a hos­pi­tal bed, even sim­ple things like shift­ing your weight become dif­fi­cult. That con­stant pres­sure on the same areas of your body reduces blood flow to the skin and to deep­er tis­sues beneath. The result? Pres­sure injuries, com­mon­ly called bed sores, can devel­op faster than most peo­ple expect. Accord­ing to a 2024 study pub­lished in Wound Repair and Regen­er­a­tion, an esti­mat­ed 2.5 mil­lion hos­pi­tal-acquired pres­sure injuries occur in the Unit­ed States each year. They can begin form­ing in as lit­tle as two hours of unre­lieved pressure. 

The most com­mon loca­tions to watch for include:

• Low­er back and tailbone
• Heels and ankles
• Elbows and shoul­der blades
• Hips and out­er thighs

Your nurs­ing team will help by repo­si­tion­ing you reg­u­lar­ly through­out your stay. If you can do so safe­ly, even small shifts in your own posi­tion can help pro­tect your skin and keep blood cir­cu­lat­ing to vul­ner­a­ble areas.

Ready to plan your recov­ery before a pro­ce­dure? A Duly pri­ma­ry care provider can help you cre­ate a plan that min­i­mizes your risks and keeps your body strong. Sched­ule an appoint­ment today > 

Weak Mus­cles and Stiff Joints

This one catch­es peo­ple off guard: you don’t have to be in the hos­pi­tal for weeks to notice mus­cle loss. Research pub­lished in the Jour­nal of Applied Phys­i­ol­o­gy (NIH/​PubMed) found that even short hos­pi­tal­iza­tions of 5 days or few­er are suf­fi­cient to reduce mus­cle mass and strength sig­nif­i­cant­ly. The great­est rate of decline hap­pens right at the start, and the weight-bear­ing mus­cles in the legs — the ones that keep you walk­ing and steady on your feet — take the hard­est hit.

Why does this hap­pen so quick­ly? Your bones bear your weight as you stand and move. Your mus­cles work with every step you take. When you stop doing both, your body starts break­ing down what it thinks it does­n’t need. Accord­ing to research reviewed by the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health, hos­pi­tal­ized old­er adults spend rough­ly 83% of their time in bed, and the func­tion­al loss­es that fol­low can take weeks or months to reverse fully.

If you’re able to get out of bed, short walks down the hall­way with your nurse or a fam­i­ly mem­ber do more good than you might think. If you can’t stand yet, even small in-bed move­ments help. Try:

• Ankle cir­cles and foot flex­es to keep cir­cu­la­tion mov­ing in your legs
• Knee bends: slide your heel toward your body and back while lying flat
• Hand and wrist squeezes using a soft ball or even a rolled towel
• Sit­ting upright in bed for a few min­utes at a time when your care team approves

None of these is stren­u­ous, and that’s the point. Small, con­sis­tent move­ments are far more effec­tive than a sin­gle burst of activ­i­ty fol­lowed by a long stretch of stillness. 

Con­sti­pa­tion and Diges­tive Changes

Move­ment does a lot more for your body than most peo­ple real­ize, and your diges­tive sys­tem is no excep­tion. When you’re lying still for extend­ed peri­ods, the wave-like con­trac­tions your colon uses to move things along slow down. Add in a reduced appetite, plus med­ica­tions that can inter­fere with nor­mal bow­el func­tion, and con­sti­pa­tion becomes a fre­quent com­plaint dur­ing long hos­pi­tal stays.

Sev­er­al fac­tors tend to work togeth­er to cause this:

• Immo­bil­i­ty: less move­ment means slow­er colon con­trac­tions, mak­ing it hard­er to emp­ty your bow­els regularly.
• Reduced food intake: bedrid­den patients often eat less than usu­al, which length­ens tran­sit time through the diges­tive system.
• Med­ica­tions: some com­mon­ly used drugs — includ­ing cer­tain blood pres­sure med­ica­tions and anti­de­pres­sants — can slow bow­el activ­i­ty as a side effect.

Eat­ing fiber-rich foods when pos­si­ble, stay­ing hydrat­ed, and mov­ing as much as your care team allows can all make a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence. If those strate­gies aren’t cut­ting it, talk to your physi­cian — there are safe and effec­tive options to help get things back on track.

Recov­er­ing at home and not feel­ing quite like your­self? A Duly provider can help you address lin­ger­ing symp­toms and build a recov­ery plan that works for your life. Find a doc­tor now > 

Blood Clots

Blood clots are one of the more seri­ous risks asso­ci­at­ed with hos­pi­tal stays, and the num­bers are sig­nif­i­cant. The CDC reports that up to 900,000 Amer­i­cans are affect­ed by venous throm­boem­bolism (VTE) — a term that cov­ers both deep vein throm­bo­sis (DVT, a clot in a deep vein, usu­al­ly the leg) and pul­monary embolism (PE, a clot that trav­els to the lungs) — each year. More than a third of those cas­es are linked to a recent hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, and many don’t become appar­ent until after discharge.

When your legs aren’t mov­ing, blood trav­els more slow­ly back toward your heart. Slow-mov­ing blood is more like­ly to clot. That clot can stay put and cause swelling and pain, or it can break free and trav­el to your lungs — a med­ical emer­gency that can be life-threatening.

Your care team has tools to help pre­vent this, includ­ing pneu­mat­ic com­pres­sion devices (inflat­able leg sleeves that keep blood cir­cu­lat­ing) and anti­co­ag­u­lant med­ica­tions for high­er-risk patients. Once you’re home, know what to watch for. Seek imme­di­ate care if you expe­ri­ence any of the following:

• Unex­plained swelling, red­ness, or warmth in one leg
• Pain or ten­der­ness in the calf or thigh that was­n’t there before
• Sud­den short­ness of breath or dif­fi­cul­ty breathing
• Chest pain or a rapid, irreg­u­lar heartbeat

These symp­toms war­rant a call to your doc­tor right away or a trip to imme­di­ate care. Don’t wait to see if they resolve on their own. 

One More Thing: The Men­tal Side of Recovery

Phys­i­cal decon­di­tion­ing does­n’t hap­pen in a vac­u­um. Emerg­ing research, includ­ing a 2024 review in Age and Age­ing (Oxford/​NIH), high­lights that cog­ni­tive decon­di­tion­ing — includ­ing slowed men­tal pro­cess­ing and mood changes — fre­quent­ly accom­pa­nies phys­i­cal decline after hos­pi­tal­iza­tion. Feel­ing fog­gy, anx­ious, or more emo­tion­al­ly deplet­ed than expect­ed aren’t char­ac­ter flaws; they’re part of the recov­ery pic­ture and absolute­ly worth men­tion­ing to your care team. 

Get­ting Back to Yourself

The good news is that most of these effects are reversible with the right approach. Your body can recov­er, and the small, con­sis­tent steps you take each day — even from your hos­pi­tal bed — add up. Here’s a sim­ple check­list to car­ry with you through recovery:

• Move a lit­tle every day, even if it’s just ankle cir­cles or sit­ting upright for a few minutes.
• Stay hydrat­ed and eat fiber-rich foods to sup­port digestion.
• Report any unusu­al swelling, short­ness of breath, or chest pain to your care team immediately.
• Let your doc­tor know if you’re feel­ing unusu­al­ly fog­gy, anx­ious, or down — cog­ni­tive changes are com­mon and treatable.
• Fol­low up with your pri­ma­ry care physi­cian with­in a week or two of dis­charge, espe­cial­ly after a longer stay.

Phys­i­cal decline after a long hos­pi­tal stay can hap­pen to any­one. Under­stand­ing why it hap­pens puts you in a much bet­ter posi­tion to address it.

Prepar­ing for a hos­pi­tal stay or recov­er­ing from one? Look­ing for sup­port? Duly physi­cians, like Dr. Suther­land, are here to guide you every step of the way. Sched­ule your appoint­ment today >