klinkmcbear
junior member
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2011
- Messages
- 52
- Age
- 63
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
I'm scheduled for left TKR May 14th.
Nervous because besides all the pain in the knee (which is significant), there's also pain away from the joint that's very limiting (around the tib-fib joint). After 3 years of seeing a bunch of different doctors, PT's and other medical professionals, and trying just about every option that exists short of TKR (euflexa, synvisc, cortisone, PRP, stem cells, months and months of PT, off loading braces, archer braces, rest) .... no one is really sure what's causing the pain outside of the joint or what will fix it. The going thought is that it's referred from the joint, and that a TKR will likely address this pain too - but my case has pretty much stumped every "expert" I've gone to. The knee itself is bad, so I still need the replacement, but if it doesn't relieve the pain outside the knee, I won't be that much farther ahead.
Additionally, my x-rays don't show bone on bone - my MRI's show more of a mess, and arthroscopic surgery 8 years ago showed all grade 3 and 4 chondromalcia (far worse than the MRI from that same time frame showed). Things haven't gotten better in 8 years, that's for sure! But my surgeon is hesitant to do TKR if he doesn't see bone on bone in the x-rays. He suspects that when he gets in there, the damage will be far worse than the x-rays show - but if not, and he thinks a total replacement won't bring a fair amount of relief, he will trim the torn meniscus, clean up the fragments, smoothing things over, and close me up. So I'm going in, not even knowing if I will have the replacement, and if I do, if it will take care of the pain that is outside of the joint.
I have always been an extremely active person, and that has decreased SOOOO much in the past few years. My entire quality of life has suffered, and at this point, the options are total knee replacement or do nothing.....which is not an option. There's nothing else that I can try, and there's no doubt in my mind that I need to do this, I just wish there wasn't so much uncertainty surrounding it.
Nervous because besides all the pain in the knee (which is significant), there's also pain away from the joint that's very limiting (around the tib-fib joint). After 3 years of seeing a bunch of different doctors, PT's and other medical professionals, and trying just about every option that exists short of TKR (euflexa, synvisc, cortisone, PRP, stem cells, months and months of PT, off loading braces, archer braces, rest) .... no one is really sure what's causing the pain outside of the joint or what will fix it. The going thought is that it's referred from the joint, and that a TKR will likely address this pain too - but my case has pretty much stumped every "expert" I've gone to. The knee itself is bad, so I still need the replacement, but if it doesn't relieve the pain outside the knee, I won't be that much farther ahead.
Additionally, my x-rays don't show bone on bone - my MRI's show more of a mess, and arthroscopic surgery 8 years ago showed all grade 3 and 4 chondromalcia (far worse than the MRI from that same time frame showed). Things haven't gotten better in 8 years, that's for sure! But my surgeon is hesitant to do TKR if he doesn't see bone on bone in the x-rays. He suspects that when he gets in there, the damage will be far worse than the x-rays show - but if not, and he thinks a total replacement won't bring a fair amount of relief, he will trim the torn meniscus, clean up the fragments, smoothing things over, and close me up. So I'm going in, not even knowing if I will have the replacement, and if I do, if it will take care of the pain that is outside of the joint.
I have always been an extremely active person, and that has decreased SOOOO much in the past few years. My entire quality of life has suffered, and at this point, the options are total knee replacement or do nothing.....which is not an option. There's nothing else that I can try, and there's no doubt in my mind that I need to do this, I just wish there wasn't so much uncertainty surrounding it.