MUA 10 weeks post PKR both knees and 2 weeks post MUA

@kneeper thank you Times 1000!
I am such a people pleaser

Sweet friend - I totally get this. Setting boundaries is a skill many of us are not trained in. Especially women!!! You do not have to please anyone - no one here, no one at PT, no one but YOU.

All this conflicting information is so confusing! We are all also completely trained to implicitly trust the "professionals" and do as we are told as they have all the experience and it's scary to try to make these choices on your own!

I personally chose to continue with PT but was able to have a conversation with my therapist about no pushing and she seemed amenable. I am paying her - she is working for ME. If she continues to push I will say - I appreciate your approach to this but mine is a bit different and I need to find someone who matches me. If you can't do that I totally understand and will find someone else. I appreciate all you have done. - and find someone else or quit or whatever. Clearly things are NOT working with what they are doing.

I literally have to practice these things as I freeze up also in situations. This is SO normal!! Do not beat yourself up. If you have to do it via text or email - do it that way!!!

I invite you to consider the possibity that....You are worth it!!

Now you can disregard everything I just said if it doesn't please you! You are in charge of you![/QUOTE]
 
I totally don't have a clue how to quote a prior message....:heehee:
 
@sugarjo369 thank you post putting this here I hadn’t seen it yet & @kneeper thank you! Learning to speak up for myself is hard and I know not just for me. I freeze also. I am going to screen shot your words so I can practice them. I didn’t know I’d have so many lessons to learn after BiPKR

I love the support here
 
I hope someone can help me. I just recorded a video of how I walk. I was hoping someone could watch it and tell me my gait will improve? I’m just so scared I’ll walk like this forever .

I wasn’t sure if we are allowed to post videos?

Thanks!
 
I think you’re allowed to post videos.

And without even seeing it I can assure you that you will improve. You’re still early in recovery and you’ll makes lots more progress.
 
Ok the video is to long so I’ll do another. But here’s my worry. I don’t bend my knees when I walk because they are so swollen and painful. My left leg when stepping forward, I land on my toes like a dressage horse. So when I walk I look like a cowboy (no offense cowboys) bow legged and stiff.
 
I don’t bend my knees when I walk because they are so swollen and painful. My left leg when stepping forward, I land on my toes like a dressage horse. So when I walk I look like a cowboy (no offense cowboys) bow legged and stiff.
I think that's all pretty normal for about 3 weeks after the MUA and 2+ months after surgery. As you progress and your knee swelling decreases, your knee will gradually bend more and your gait will improve naturally.
For now, don't worry about it. Just do the best you can.
 
How you are walking now is nowhere near it will be after you heal. No one at less than a month out after a MUA walks the way they will in the end. Please stop worrying so much. Stress inhibits healing. Chill out, as they used to say, and relax. Enjoy each little success you have. This recovery takes lots of time and there is nothing you can do to speed it up.
 
@sistersinhim & @Celle thank you. I’ve got myself so worked up. I definitely need to relax and chill out. I’m glad that where I’m at sounds ok. I need to build my confidence, this whole ordeal has me in a tail spin. One minute I’m ok, the next I’m an emotional wreck. I have started meditating to quiet myself. I have anxiety normally and this has me completely anxiety ridden. Thanks again for the support and a gentle reminder to chill out :ice:
 
@kneeper thank you Times 1000!
I am such a people pleaser that when I am put in the situation that I was this afternoon I freeze and just nod my head up-and-down much to my demise! Is there a rule out there that you have to do an outtake form for physical therapy? I am friends on Facebook with one of my PT’s, I really don’t want to be chastised by anybody on social media!
I feel like at this point I am put in between a rock and a hard place. I do know that what’s best for me is to let my knee guide me to recovery. But I do not know how to articulate that to the professionals

I hear you. I wanted to be "cooperative" with my first knee and did squats (even mini ones) against my better judgment which just made my knee and surrounding tissues needlessly sore. With knee #2 I just politely said no. And my leg strengthened just fine taking it slowly.
I was willing to try other things but learned to say "not yet" or "that's enough for today" and I never had an issue with them.
 
Rest, ice, elevate but remember to walk about a bit each hour. I used to walk from one end of the flat to the other. I counted about 30 strides each time saying 'heel toe, heel toe' to myself as I did it.
Your gait will normalise. Chill!!
 
@jenm1970 One of my home PTs would obsess about my gait. I had been walking with a limp /hobble for about a year when I had my PKR. I could never get my gait correct for her. When I started outpatient PT. The PT there said "you gait is you gait" It will come back to normal when the pain and swelling go away. He told me not to worry about it. Fast forward 6 months, I now walk normally, or as normally as I did my prior 58 years of life.
Good luck on your recovery! I can not imagine what you have been through. Bilateral PKR then knee boot camp, very unnecessary!
 
You’re walking on your toes and I walked like a pirate! I was in an immbolizer for 4-6 weeks, thus the pegleg walk, but even with the immbolizer 24/7 I was still able to acquire a full range of motion in time. Give yourself the gift of time, let your knee heal from the trauma of surgery and MUA, and when the swelling decreases your ROM will be there.
 
Even though I could walk with a cane during my first week post op, I continued to use my walker for at least 3 to 4 weeks when I went for a walk in my house. Having not walked without a cane for 4 years, I wanted to concentrate on walking as carefully and naturally as possible, using arm strength to help.

Some time around the 4 week mark I decided to take the show on the road and start walking around the block outside, starting at about ¼ mile. I brought a cane but I held it in the other hand so that I really was walking with my new leg. I mostly just played with the cane.

Well, those first few walks I felt like I was a member of the gang that couldn't walk straight. I was all over the sidewalk, one minute on the left, then on the right, bumping into my wife along the way. And my gait was all wrong. While my left foot looked like it was doing what it was supposed to be doing, my right foot looked like it was underneath me. It was all wrong. I had forgotten how to walk. I tried to make it look right but that made it worse. I started to feel like Frankenstein stomping down the sidewalk.

This went on for a few weeks, then one day I ran into a neighbor at Rite Aid. She said, “Robert, it's so great to see you walking in the neighborhood again, you look great!”

I thought she was going to tell me I was scaring her.

I don't think about it much anymore. Aside from the occasional swerve, it's just walking now.
 
And if you have gait issues before the surgery it can feel strange to "walk normal" when you are recovering.
 
Since my last posting I have continued to rest, ice and elevate as many times a day I am able. Over the weekend I was gentle with myself making sure to take many breaks during the day. On Friday my “elasticated tubular bandages” arrived. These are a game changer! I wore them all day during the day over the weekend , what improvement in my swelling by the end of each day! Today I went to work (cleaned a house with a cleaning partner).
I worked for two hours on light duty, the swelling in my knees as well as my ankles isn’t as significant as it has been over the past 2 1/2 months. That makes me happy. Last week when I was seen at the pain clinic, I brought up the weaning off of one of the high powered pain meds specifically Oxcotin. He told me how he would go about it which included continuing to take one of the Oxcotin‘s and then the second one that I take was to be replaced with an oxycodone at a lower level and wean off that way a week at a time, 5 mg at a time. On Saturday when my prescription, which is sent electronically came up, my husband went to pick it up and there was only one prescription and that was the OxyContin. Today,
I called the Pain Clinic and spoke with the assistant to my Pain, let’s call him a guy since he’s not a doctor he’s a PA. The assistant told me that all of my prescriptions were filled and there was nothing up coming. I told her that I had a conversation with the PA and he had explain to me how to taper off. She said yes that’s in the notes. She then put me on hold and when she came back she asked if I had filled the prescription. I said of course I did because I was out of medication. She said I now have to wait another month in order to do the weaning process. She also slaked about my flexion. The problem is is that Oxcotin is it time Released medication so you can not to cut it in half. Oxycodone which is OxyContin but not in time release formula, you can’t cut in half which is why he was going to prescribe me both to wean off of one tablet at a time. I am taking the OxyContin every 12 hours. Along with my hydrocodone. I am a chronic pain patient due to severe lower back pain. My frustration is, here I am wanting to do what’s best and the PA didn’t follow through on his end. Had it been the other way around I would be up a creek without a paddle. Six weeks ago I was in that position because I had taken several more of my hydrocodone due to a higher level of pain and was told too bad, deal with that,
you don’t get a refill until it’s time. That was of course told to me by the PAs assistant. No offer of an appointment or anything. I called back immediately and made an appointment and showed up in the next day. Thankfully, we got things straight away as far as how I was doing with my pain meds at that time and what to do. Now I’m dealing with this. The other ridiculous,
asinine thing that happened was he (the PA) has me on gabapentin because I have been experiencing nerve pain and since day 4 postop. He titrated me up 100 mg of gabapentin,
three times a day, then landed me at a 300 mg a day once a day. When I told him at my appointment last week that I needed a refill of gabapentin he said no you should have plenty of refills left and I told him I did not and he asked how often I was taking it and I told him once a day and he said you should be taking it three times a day well of course he had only prescribed 30 pills over a month. That means one pill a day. I pointed out to him that the prescription says to take one pill,
Once a day. I told him I always go by what is on the prescription bottle, Per my pain contract. He told me we had discussed that and I was supposed to take one pill three times a day. I said it did not state that on the prescription and he proceeded to tell me there wasn’t enough room on the prescription bottle to state that. Regardless, the prescription bottle said take one pill once a day and there are only 30 pills in the prescription bottle so there would’ve been no way for me to take three of them it would’ve only lasted 10 days . I do wish there was a different way to go about my pain management, but unfortunately I am stuck where I’m at. I do the best that I can and feel like I am being short changed and treated like I’m an idiot. Even in the worst throws of pain I am still able to comprehend directions given to me whether it be a doctor, a PA, or some other professional or anyone for that matter. Sorry for the long post there are very few people in my world that understand what I’m going through, I am thankful you each understand.
 
Does anyone know how many members we have in the knee replacement part of this site? I ask because I am formulating a response in my head to the “professionals” at my next appt to explain how I’ve decided to approach my PKR recovery.

Thanks in advance for your help :)
 
Personally I don’t know how many members are in the knee category, @Josephine would.

This is a post I found a while ago about the history of Bonesmart. I found it very interesting and helpful, especially when Josephine talks about her job history. It surely proved to me that she has the qualifications to advise us. Not that I needed proof, but it’s good information to show the nay sayers in our life who think Bonesmart is just a little blog of people saying anything they want.
https://bonesmart.org/forum/threads/the-history-of-bone-smart-forum.8171/

Here is more information about FARM, that oversees Bonesmart, it stands for the Foundation for Awareness in Research in Medicine, and this link lists the orthopedic surgeons on the board. I don’t think it’s the most updated list of board directors, (I can’t find the current one) but the point is, we have orthopedic surgeons who agree with Bonesmart’s philosophy.
http://farmortho.org/bod/
 

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