TKR Swelling In Knee, Lower Leg And Ankle 10 Months On.

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I will try that Josephine tomorrow. I'm having a really bad day today on four occasions I've had what can only be described as a shooting pain on the media side of my knee making it buckle forwards. I haven't had this pain before and hopefully it will disappear as it quickly as it started, the last one felt like a crack in my knee.
 
Just been reading your thread. You sure are going through the mill. Don't have the medical knowledge to add anything constructive unfortunately. Isn't it strange how you got off to what seemed like a good start with your knee and then all this happens. Josephine's suggestions are undoubtedly the way to go, but it can be so hard doing all that is necessary to get things moving when you are in such pain.

You have been a BS member quite a while, so you will know that there have been some pretty bad cases who despite everything got a good outcome eventually. Don't know what type of personality you are, but the cup half full people do better (sadly I'm not one of them). So while I cannot say I practice what I preach, you are going to have to find that positive inner strength to get you through.
 
I try to be a glass half full person but sometimes my optimism is tested to the full, I carried on regardless when I was in a lot of pain after the TKR when I was struggling to get nowhere near 90 degrees bend, the Physio at the time felt I was a lost cause as she had never come across a TKR patient who had so little ROM after the op. I was determined to get there and then some and when I finally mange to get out hillwalking for the first time in over three years I was over the moon, it was bloody hard work and even with two hiking poles I really struggled but sheer determination won the day.

My goal is to get back out hillwalking more so after the consultant said I would never hill walk again, I enjoy proving people wrong. Sadly though I also know when something is amiss and not quite right, the pain I'm getting now is similar to the arthritic pain which had me on crutches for 12 months I know it can't be that but it's frustrating as well as painful all the same.
 
I'm going through the frustration also, I used to be a very active person. Let's hope we both get fixed soon.
 
it was bloody hard work and even with two hiking poles I really struggled but sheer determination won the day.

As you probably know BS doesn't subscribe to the `No pain No gain' philosophy. Do you think your sheer determination resulted in your pushing too hard? All the way through my recovery I have struggled to get the right balance between rest v exercise. Its hard because sometimes you don't know you've overdone it until its too late. I can so understand your frustration, but your well being is more important than proving people wrong.

Have you decided who you will go with for that all important second opinion? There's a lot to weigh up - particularly how quickly you can be seen. Best wishes. Carol
 
No as I waited until I got clearance from my consultant, It was around the beginning of December I first managed to get out on the hills which was some 9 months post op. I only managed around 3 miles the first time but it was the descent which proved challenging as I had to take the smallest of steps at a snails pace. My last walk was in January and I managed about 7 miles by then, again the decent was hard work and I had to be even more careful due to the instability which was getting worse by this stage.

I still haven't decided which one I should see but I think it's between Peter James and Robert Spencer, both perform a lot of revision surgery and both appear to have excellent reputations. I'm at the doc's tomorrow as I really need this fast tracking now as the sharp shooting pain on the medial side is still there this morning when I weight bear.
 
Well the decision who I see first is straightforward now as the waiting time for Robert Spencer Jones is around 10 weeks and for Peter James 4 weeks.
 
Hi @Solar Cycles, I think getting the second opinion is a great idea - it's the best way to know what's going on for sure. I'm only at 11 weeks post op but here's one thing I've noticed: my sister is in a wheelchair so we have a few ramped entrances in our house that I have to walk up and down 4-5 times a day. At this point in my recovery, I would rather walk up and down a flight of stairs than negotiate the ramps but obviously I don't have a choice. With stairs there's usually a railing so you can take some of the pressure off of your knee which you can't on a ramp but I think it also has something to do with the angle and degree of stress created by walking on a ramp. I'm guessing that ramp walking is not too dissimilar to hill walking though hills, no doubt, are longer and the degree of steepness varies. I'm just wondering, did you do a lot of reconditioning muscles before you got back to hill walking? I don't mean starting out slowly on hills and gradually increasing, but reconditioning - lots of boring walking on level surfaces, targeted gym work focusing on quads, glutes and hammies - before you even attempted a hill walk? I just know that once I've strained something (muscle, tendon, ligament), I have to rest it completely and then go back to basics to start conditioning again. Depending on the outcome of your consultation, it might be something to consider.
 
Hi Susie. Prior to setting off hillwalking I had spent many months on a static bike and lots of quad building exercises, though I struggled with some of these due to the lack of a patella and stiffness in my hamstrings from the allograft taken from there. Also I had undertaken quite a few low level walks and some swimming, the main problem still remains instability, pain and stiffness with the pain intensifying tenfold over the medial side over the last 48 hours, this is something new and feels very similar to the arthritic pain I had before. I know that something is very wrong as what started as a slow decline in my mobility is snowballing into an avalanche of problems.

I'm hoping that things will improve by the end of next month as I've paid for a family camping holiday and our 11 year old daughter is really looking forward to this, as we all are really.
 
Hi Solar Cycle (interesting name??) Did you get everything you wanted from your GP visit? Anything additional to control the pain? Carol
 
Hi Carol. I'm at the docs this PM, I've been slowly eliminating my preferences down to waiting times now as all of the chosen ones were of the highest calibre when it came to revision surgery. I'm now going to ask to be referred to see Peter James at Nottingham, the waiting times to see him are around 4 weeks which is some 6 weeks better than Richard Spencer Jones.

Regards

Stephen
 
Hi Carol, I ended up going for Peter James but I will have to wait for a decision from the choose and book panel. Apparently in my area if you wish too see a orthopaedic consultant out of area it now has to be approved due to them being able to offer this service locally. Hopefully the GP's accompanying letter will overcome this obstacle, as for my area specialising in Orthopaedics or for that matter any other medical area, well we are not near the bottom of the NHS league of shame for nothing.
 
Solar, a little bit of advice. On Choose and Book, you don't get the surgeon of your choice, you get whoever the Appointments clerk choose to allocate you to. The way round it is this: when you get your letter confirming the appointment, if it's not with Peter James, ring the hospital and speak with his secretary as soon as you can and explain what's happened, that you used C&B and got allocated to someone else but that you are a special case and in need of his particular expertise so can she please help by getting you reallocated to him.

I didn't realise you were using C&B else I would have cautioned you not to for this reason. It's a good system if you don't mind who you're going to see but not when you do! There was a story recently of a lady who used C&B to get an appointment to have her hip done and the appointments clerk allocated her to a foot surgeon! She didn't know until she turned up in clinic and he said "I don't do hips"! So she had to go all through the system again!
 
I must've been lucky then, my hospital gave me a number to ring if I had any problems saying 'we want to be first to know of any problems'. At about 6 months I phoned and was told my consultant had a clinic next day, just come in.
 
I'll do just that Josephine, it does seem like there's more and more red tape and bureaucracy within the NHS these days. Everything use to work so smoothly at one time, then they brought in Pathways and Choose and Book and it then went the way of the pear.
 
Everything use to work so smoothly at one time

Oh come on Stephen you are sounding like `disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells'. Everything didn't used to work smoothly in the past. Its just that we tended to accept things more. The bureaucracy to which you refer, is the result of your having the luxury of being able to google surgeons' profiles and tell your GP who you want to be referred to. You wouldn't have had the issues associated with that in the past, because you would have just had to take what you were given. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Carol

ps: fingers crossed you get to see Peter James.
 
I worked as a Mental Health Nurse or over 15 years and believe me things were far more efficient back then. Also the referral system was in my opinion far better, in that you asked your GP to be referred to a consultant and he wrote to them and weeks later you got your appointment. Off course with the onset of the digital age google is your friend and finding the relevant information is now so much easier than before.
 
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