5 weeks post op

[misscheer]

HI all,

I am now five weeks post op and can walk without crutches around the house. I have been camping and lovin it. I am happy to have done the tkr my rom is at 120 and I can straighten my leg. I still have pain especially after a day of watching the kids. I have a home based daycare and I took the kids back at 3 weeks post op luckily they are all older and could help me and help themselves. I have a pool so we have been doing a lot of swimming. I no longer have pt so I do all the exercises myself and really push myself hard. I still have a little trouble sleeping not as bad as two weeks ago. I find everyday it gets better and better. I can go shopping by myself and I love it. I sure missed walmart. I have done remarkably well and everyone is surprised at how I am recovering so well. I was determined to get well and get my life back. The pain is tolerable nothing like it was before the tkr. This forum has helped me a lot with lots of good advice. I am very happy to find this forum. Thank you all for the advice. I still can use the advice.

 

[Josephine]

That's just great, misscheer. You are doing so very well.

 

[hess]

Good for you!! It sounds like you are coming right along! There is nothing like doing what we did before without the arthritic pain, huh? Don't get too discouraged if you have a bad day, just chalk it up and move on (sometimes this is easier said than done!) Good luck to you, and you'll be in my thoughts!

Hess

 

[ship4]

HI all,

I am now five weeks post op and can walk without crutches around the house. I have been camping and lovin it. I am happy to have done the tkr my rom is at 120 and I can straighten my leg. I still have pain especially after a day of watching the kids. I have a home based daycare and I took the kids back at 3 weeks post op luckily they are all older and could help me and help themselves. I have a pool so we have been doing a lot of swimming. I no longer have pt so I do all the exercises myself and really push myself hard. I still have a little trouble sleeping not as bad as two weeks ago. I find everyday it gets better and better. I can go shopping by myself and I love it. I sure missed walmart. I have done remarkably well and everyone is surprised at how I am recovering so well. I was determined to get well and get my life back. The pain is tolerable nothing like it was before the tkr. This forum has helped me a lot with lots of good advice. I am very happy to find this forum. Thank you all for the advice. I still can use the advice.

Hello misscheer,
I too am a family child care provider. I had BTKR on 6/18 and am 6 weeks post op. I have had a parent client as a helper since 6/30 (I was 12 days post op). She will stay with me until 8/15. She has been a God send......... I have been able to work on resting, getting my strength back, doing my PT, and working on my ROM. I was 125 in both knees this week. She was very happy with my progress and discharged me from PT. I had my incisions split during week 3 and am still recovering from that..... I have a 1" scab on my right knee. I am so looking forward to the day when I can go in the hot tub! We have one in our basement.....
I ride the stationary bike daily now, work on my quads with various exercises, and continue to work on my balance. I want to get back to skiing and I feel I need to get my ROM up to 135 for that.... I was there prior to surgery, so hopefully I will have it as an attainable goal.
I have had 9 children (6 preschool & 3 school age) for the summer. Come the end of August, they will go back to school and I will be down to 6 again.
Good Luck to you! It sounds like you are doing all the right things!
Best,
Crystal

 

[DaleMc]

I will be 6 weeks this coming Monday. See the OS on Tuesday and plan on returning to work 1/2 days on Aug 11 for a couple of weeks and then go from there. PT is still a challenge, I think the 2 gals in there are competeing to see who can press my leg to get the most ROM. The lead gal got it to 97 last Friday and the second in command pushed until she got 98 today. My leg feels like mush right now. The OS was glad to see anything over 90 so I guess I am good to go. Was able to get the bike pedal to go around forward for the first time today. I have been able to do it backwards for about a week. No pain except when I over do it and sleep most of the night and have been for about 4 weeks. I guess I am pretty lucky in my recovery but it just isn't going as fast as I would like for it to go. Hard to just sit with my leg elevated for most of the day. My wife takes pity on me every once in a while and takes me to the movies. I have been driving for about 3 weeks now as long as I haven't taken any meds. I only take 1 per every night before bedtime just to make sure I sleep okay. Well enough from me. Take care everyone and lets get through this together.

Dale

 

[MAMAYAMA]

Hi Misscheer,

WOW! You sound remarkable. CAMPING???? I'm at 3.5 weeks and am still having in-house PT. She got me at 95 ROM. I am really pleased at how I am coming along, but frustrated at the limitations still put on me. My PT does not want me doing the stairs for another week. This makes me captive. She said that she would rather have me not do them, if not needed, because it will help to have a quicker recovery. I feel like I could prepare dinner, get in the pool, walk outside, etc. but instead am going stir crazy. Tuesday will do the stairs, so hopefully I'll be a free woman.

I am still waking up every 2.5 hours, but am able to fall back to sleep after about an hour. I am still taking Vicodin around the clock. Only one every six hours during the day, but two at night before bed and two five hours after. I don't know if I should be cutting that back. Any input from anyone?

I will be returning to work half day on 8/21. I am hoping I will be able to do a longer day the following week. I am a middle school office supervisor and there is so much to do to get ready to open the school. I am also praying I'll be driving by then.

Keep up the great work.

 

[beachcomber]

NO! Do not cut back on your vicodin yet. Pain will hold back your recovery!

You will know when it is time to cut back because you will be busy and suddenly realize you didn't remember to take your pain meds for a longer time because you didn't need them. Your body will let you know! You are still very early in your recovery. When it is time--- it is better to lengthen the time between meds rather than cut the dosage or eliminate the pill entirely. IMO it is better to allow your body to make the decision rather than to arbitrarily just stop taking them. Others disagree with me. You will figure out what works best for you.

However you decide to reduce/eliminate pain meds---- it is too early if you are still not even allowed to do stairs..... don't get yourself into the "red" zone on Jo's pain diagram. Trust me---- it is not worth it and takes more meds to get the pain under control again. I tried it. I know.

 

[Josephine]

I am still waking up every 2.5 hours, but am able to fall back to sleep after about an hour. I am still taking Vicodin around the clock. Only one every six hours during the day, but two at night before bed and two five hours after. I don't know if I should be cutting that back. Any input from anyone?

No - it's really not worth cutting back too soon. 3 weeks is much, much too soon to be trying to do without. As beach said, it'll have a detrimental effect on your progress. Be kind to yourself and keep it up. And don't feel like you're being a wuss because of that. At 3 MONTHS maybe you can think about cutting back. Not before! Especially if you are planning to return to work shortly.

 

[lgobrien]

I agree with Beach and Jo. I think all of us think we're being wimps in the beginning and try to go off the pain meds, but it will definitely hasten your recovery period when you are not in pain. You will be more likely to do your PT if you make sure to take your pain meds a half hour before your exercises.

Like Beach said, LATER (much later and different times for all of us) when you FORGET to take your pain meds, its a sure sign your body is slowly weaning off the pain meds naturally.

Hang in there you are doing great!

Laurie

 

[Dedicated_Dad]

Some advice from one who has been there: work with your doc to wean off the meds.

I'd been on 60mg ms-contin (morphine, continuous release) every 6 hours for a long while after my accident. I decided I wanted off of it, knew I needed to wean down, so I started going longer. 7 hours, 8, 9, 10 hours... I got out around 11 and... I had an "attack." I couldn't breathe, heart was going nuts, sweating... I thought I was having a heart attack or a blood clot...

I made my wife take me to ER -- ~12 miles away. I took the pain pill because I knew the ride would be painful for me... I got to the ER, they did an EKG (which showed some palpitations) then I started feeling better.

The Doc was talking to me about PTSD, panic attacks, etc... "That ain't me, Doc. I've been through much worse than this..." -- my tough-guy routine.

A week or so later, having cut down again, it happened again. Again I made wifey take me to ER, again I took the pill before leaving home... This time it occurred to me that maybe ... When I told the Doc what I'd done, she chewed me out. This was not the way to wean down on the morphine. I needed to reduce my dose but keep up the frequency. She wrote me a 12-week titration schedule, I did it in <4... I was able to handle the withdrawals when I knew what they were...

HTH...

DD

 

[Josephine]

But you're not going to be in that situation for a good while yet. Besides which from what I have been able to read - Vicodin is a mix of paracetamol/tylenol and dihydrocodeine which is only dependent in the very long term. A few months should not be a problem.