TKR Allin1's left knee TKR

@allin1 you are kicking butt. I want to be like you next week. I've heard sleeping if off and on so I've decided to set up shop on the living room so I don't wake anyone.
 
@Nelly Thanks. I don't want to give the impression it is all sunshine and rainbows. I have pain and stiffness like most. I think I'm lucky that I'm not a type A personality that wants to push it real hard. I ice it a lot but still get pain that seems random, all of a sudden it will just ache without what seems a good reason. Conversely, occasionally I'll notice almost a complete lack of pain. Unfortunately those haven't happened too often and are short. I keep telling myself it is only day 8.
I wish you luck and look forward to reading about your progress!
 
Thanks @allin1 I just found out that my surgery is going to be rescheduled for a month out. I need dental work done
 
Day 10 post surgery. I had a bad Thursday (day 8) and was feeling a little discouraged. I was reading an old thread and saw one of the moderators saying that tramadol and acetaminophen together was a more effective pain reliever. I gave that a try and got better control of my achy sore knee. Since then I've been on an up trend, with less pain and swelling. I lost all of the water weight and I'm back to 2 pounds below my pre surgery weight. I'm able to walk around the house and yard with no aid. I'll use a cane if I go anywhere, but haven't gone too many places.
All in all, I'd say everything has gone as well as could be expected. Have my final two home therapy sessions next week and my 2 week surgical follow up on Thursday. They want to do the follow up remotely. I think they should only charge half as much for remote "visits", but I'm sure they will charge the full amount.
 
Hi @allin1,

I hope you're well... I think you and I had surgery the same day 5/20... I was on my feet and out of the house for the first time since surgery yesterday and had a bit of swelling and soreness when I got home. I immediately got on on the floor and did my exercises and iced 20 minutes on 20 minutes off for a couple of hours and felt a lot better...

My follow up is virtual as well, I guess we'll see how it goes... Have a good week.
 
You have to add all the acetaminophen that's in anything else that you are taking. Here's what we found works well:

The first is for 4-hourly doses and the second for 6-hourly:
aa-tramadol-routine-2-jpg.51125
 
Thanks @billmo816 and @sistersinhim. I haven't been taking anything close to that dose of Tylenol. I could add in a little more, if I wanted.
I have some bad news to report. I did something stupid, I'm not exactly sure how I did it, but I was trying to get out of the car while it was in the garage. I had to bend and I think I twisted the knee at the same time to get my foot over the door sill of the car, and I really hurt something in my knee. I think I have less motion now then I did straight from surgery. I'm icing it like crazy and trying to bend and straighten it every so often, but it is really sore and painful. If it is still this bad in the morning I'm going to call the surgeons office, see what they think. It really hurts in the outside lower part of my knee, and the whole knee is really stiff and sore. I'm very sad this happened because I really felt I was on the upside.
 
3:00 AM, day 12. I am really scared I did something bad to my knee, like tear the outside ligament. I will definitely call the surgeon once they are open. My knee is as painful now as it was day 1, with less range of motion. I could cry, I was doing so well. And I'm not a crier!
 
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I’m so sorry to hear about the pain and how scared you are! I get it!

Definitely call you doctor this morning. But in the meantime, remember you are in the very very early days of recovery and it wouldn’t take much to make your knee angry!

Hope you feel better today!
 
@JennyLynne Thanks JennyLynne. I have a call into the Dr., waiting for a call back. I hope its just a misstep that made my knee angry, but it feels worse. I'm a little worried I killed my ACL. I have only about half to maybe 60% of the bend I had. The pain is better, but feels extremely stiff again. I was doing so well, this is disheartening
 
It's good that you have a call in to your doctor. More than likely you just angered your soft tissues and they have reacted with pain and swelling. This isn't an unusual thing to happen, unfortunately. Twisting a knee that is this young is something they hate. You are doing the right thing by icing and elevating. Don't keep trying to bend it. Your bend will come back when the tissues calm down. If you keep aggravating them it will just take longer for them to recover from your setback.

Please let us know what your doctor says.
 
@sistersinhim Thanks for your insight. Will continue to ice and elevate. I really hope you are right and its not anything serious. My two week follow up was this coming Thursday on a remote appointment. I called the Dr. and we bumped it up to tomorrow afternoon and in the office with the PA. It was so acute that I was worried it was really bad, but it is less painful today. Still not a good bend, but I'll let it rest and see if it comes back.
 
I had my two week follow up, with X-rays due to my mishap on Sunday night. The PA and surgeon are happy with the X-rays. Appears those who placed their bets on a soft tissue injury were right. It was interesting, the PA was more on the rest, ice, and elevation page. Then the surgeon came in and he was like, "its time to go on that knee. You need to push it to get it straight and bend it. Even if you have to take more pain meds." My bend was around 97 at the drs office. It was around 107 at home with the PT before the Sunday mishap.
Also, I was afraid I tore my ACL or something, and the PA clued me in that I don't have an ACL anymore. Whoops.
 
I hope you don’t mind that I’m laughing about the ACL.... that’s something I would say too!

Im so happy to hear the xrays looked good. Hopefully you will feel better quickly from the twist. I think you have a very nice bend for 3 weeks! I’m no where near 90 yet at 3 weeks and my doctor wasn’t concerned. I think you should listen to the PA!
 
@JennyLynne I think I'm going to continue with the Bonesmart / PA recovery. Even my home health PT has been pretty good about not pushing too hard, and letting the soft tissue heal. So, I think I will see what I can do as far as pushing it some but not so much it inflames the soft tissue even more. I mean, what can a surgeon know! :)
 
@allin1, I hope you get to feeling better soon, R.I.C.E..... I hope your feeling better this time next week, I'll check back with you....

Have a good rest of the week.

Bill
 
@allin1 pushing any exercising will only set you back - especially since you had the soft tissue injury. Please don't feel you need to force anything. Your ROM will come in time.
 
@Jaycey Thanks. It is tough when the surgeon says I should be doing something to ignore it. However, prior to my setback Sunday night I was doing so well with the Bonesmart method that I am going to try to stick to it. This morning my knee feels better upon awaking then it has since Sunday, so hopefully I'm on the mend. The fact that the soft tissue needs to have the swelling and inflammation come out of it before doing to much seems so self evident to me that I will continue to follow it.
 
Surgeons often get this wrong. A colleague of mine who is a top knee surgeon in outer London said he used to give the same "push it" advice to his patients. It was not until he helped his Father recover from a TKR that he realised just how complex the process was. He now recommends the gentle approach to all his patients.
 

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