Danceteach
new member
Hi everyone! I'm so glad to have found this forum.
I had a TKR on my right knee on the 15th May. I'm in the UK and I'm lucky to live near a specialist hospital which only does knees, hips and the occasional shoulder. The care I had there was really good and very supportive. The first few days were really difficult though - I had been warned it would be painful and my goodness it was!
I left the hospital after three days and am now at home recovering. I'm really thrilled by how quickly I'm recovering and getting about. I'm walking around the house with no sticks or crutches at all and my gait and posture is getting back to normal. It helps that I'm a dance teacher so I'm very fit and I have good balance, strength and flexibility. Also, the style and layout of my home is such that it's easy to get about without crutches (wooden floors, no steps, minimalist decor and lots of handy walls to reach out to if necessary).
I'm doing the exercises I've been given, but not quite as often as prescribed (they say three times a day but I find twice is as much as I want to do and I prefer to listen to my own body) I'm resting as much as possible and find that every afternoon I totally crash out and sleep for two hours.
The pain in the daytime is decreasing fast, but the nights! Oh the nights! My leg aches so much I can't sleep. Why is it so much worse at night than the daytime? I'm taking extra pain medication at night but I don't find it helps at all. Last night I went walkabout to try and calm the aching down - just walking round and round in circles to try and ease it up, but it didn't help.
My main worry is that I have to start working again from today It's not actual dance teaching I have to do, but I have a big show on tour around the UK and I have to do press releases and advertising for our next show at the end of June. I also mentor ten professional dancers and I have meetings with them all this month to determine their goals and development programme for the coming year. It's all sitting down stuff this month, but even so, it does take up energy and focus.
My consultant had insisted I mustn't work for at least six weeks, but of course I thought I knew better! Also when you're self employed sometimes you just don't have much option.
I honestly thought I'd be climbing the walls and be desperate to do some gentle work by now, but honestly, it takes all my energy just getting from one room to another or making a cup of tea So I really regret being so gung ho before my op and arranging for work to start again so soon.
So, that's me. I'm going to take things as easily as possible. I'm glad to see that this forum is supportive to the idea of not overdoing the PT, and I'm going to speak to my assistant and let her know that I'm not as able to work as much as I had expected, so she will need to take on more of the workload. She also needs to make sure I'm protected so people don't call on me for stuff too much (a big problem with my job).
Any advice on how long the aching at night goes on for?
TIA
I had a TKR on my right knee on the 15th May. I'm in the UK and I'm lucky to live near a specialist hospital which only does knees, hips and the occasional shoulder. The care I had there was really good and very supportive. The first few days were really difficult though - I had been warned it would be painful and my goodness it was!
I left the hospital after three days and am now at home recovering. I'm really thrilled by how quickly I'm recovering and getting about. I'm walking around the house with no sticks or crutches at all and my gait and posture is getting back to normal. It helps that I'm a dance teacher so I'm very fit and I have good balance, strength and flexibility. Also, the style and layout of my home is such that it's easy to get about without crutches (wooden floors, no steps, minimalist decor and lots of handy walls to reach out to if necessary).
I'm doing the exercises I've been given, but not quite as often as prescribed (they say three times a day but I find twice is as much as I want to do and I prefer to listen to my own body) I'm resting as much as possible and find that every afternoon I totally crash out and sleep for two hours.
The pain in the daytime is decreasing fast, but the nights! Oh the nights! My leg aches so much I can't sleep. Why is it so much worse at night than the daytime? I'm taking extra pain medication at night but I don't find it helps at all. Last night I went walkabout to try and calm the aching down - just walking round and round in circles to try and ease it up, but it didn't help.
My main worry is that I have to start working again from today It's not actual dance teaching I have to do, but I have a big show on tour around the UK and I have to do press releases and advertising for our next show at the end of June. I also mentor ten professional dancers and I have meetings with them all this month to determine their goals and development programme for the coming year. It's all sitting down stuff this month, but even so, it does take up energy and focus.
My consultant had insisted I mustn't work for at least six weeks, but of course I thought I knew better! Also when you're self employed sometimes you just don't have much option.
I honestly thought I'd be climbing the walls and be desperate to do some gentle work by now, but honestly, it takes all my energy just getting from one room to another or making a cup of tea So I really regret being so gung ho before my op and arranging for work to start again so soon.
So, that's me. I'm going to take things as easily as possible. I'm glad to see that this forum is supportive to the idea of not overdoing the PT, and I'm going to speak to my assistant and let her know that I'm not as able to work as much as I had expected, so she will need to take on more of the workload. She also needs to make sure I'm protected so people don't call on me for stuff too much (a big problem with my job).
Any advice on how long the aching at night goes on for?
TIA