5 years and 7 months update.
Basically not much has changed. I rarely have actual pain, which is a good thing, but still a lot of discomfort at times, mostly when standing and leaning forward, and turning. So, my discomfort usually happens the most when I’m in the kitchen, leaning to load or unload the dishwasher, leaning in towards the sink washing dishes, and just turning from one counter to the other across the room. Making the bed will bring this on, too. It feels like the knee is out of joint. And, it’s not in the center knee area, where the patella is, or where my implant is, it‘s always on the lower lateral side of the knee, most likely where the lateral release was done during my Patellofemoral PKR surgery.
I was away this weekend, and I thought I had managed to go up and down stairs, foot over foot, fairly well, but…there was a handrail on each side, so that was great. Going up was ok, and I was excited that I had actually come down foot over foot, but in reality, what I was doing while coming down was supporting/lifting myself with my arms on the handrails, so that I didn’t put much weight on my replaced knee as I stepped down with the better leg. By the time I got home I had pain in the front of my left shoulder, from the stress on it. I then realized that’s the same shoulder that was injured at PT when I was one week post op, and the same pain, though not anywhere near as intense. I do get pain in this shoulder from time to time and apparently I did enough damage then that any new stress can make it flare up. I never made that connection until yesterday.
But, I did find one big improvement. I sat in a low beach chair, that’s all my friend had, and I did get out of it without any trouble!
It did help that the chair had arms, and that the sand did slope down away from me a little, giving me a bit more height, but I was very pleased about it!
So, there’s always the possibility of more improvement, in some areas, years down the road!
This is me in the blue sweatshirt: