Become an Insider

TKR Almost one year, still a bit sore

@Celle I'm glad, and thank you for saying so.

The most important thing I've learnt from being at BoneSmart is about PT. I would not have had the nerve to stop it those first two weeks without reading all the articles about taking charge of your own recovery etc... And I think if there's one thing all future TKR patients can read it is that one point!

So thank you for sharing all those meaningful articles.
 
@Irelandliz ... I hope you've reconsidered about stepping away from BoneSmart. I've just caught up with your recovery thread and think you're coming right along very well. Many people find the pain increases around the 3-4 week point. We call that the "angry tissue" stage where it can seem like your body is rebelling against your best efforts. You have done the wise thing by slowing down the activity and exercise and upping your medications to help get you through this time. I tell you....knee replacement recovery is TOUGH for most of us. Those stories you may hear about someone's third cousin's boyfriend that was out on the golf course at 3 weeks are just that - stories! They seem to appear constantly.

But your recovery is yours alone. You and your knee are unique and you'll get better on your own terms. The important thing is to listen to your body. It will tell you (with pain and/or stiffness) when you need to slow down a bit. Likewise you'll some days feel a little niggling that it is okay to push a bit and see what happens. Recovery will have ups and downs, progress and setbacks, smiles and frustration. Please know we are here to deal with all of it right along with you. We celebrate even the smallest of victories (like Pheebs wearing underwear - :yes!:).

So, let me tell you again that you're doing just fine. You're early in this recovery. You're wise enough to do things on your own terms. This will help ensure your success!
 
Sometimes improvement seems to come overnight. This recovery cannot be compared to anything else I have known. And people who have not been through it have no way of understanding it, and therefore no way of understanding us. It is a really tough road, and it takes time to get through it. Some days you will have to do whatever it takes. And some days you will be rewarded. But it it temporary. Time goes by, no matter what we are doing. You just happen to be spending this time letting your knee heal.
 
It has taken me a wee while to understand all the wee gizmos with this forum including the Liking etc so my apologies if I am late in liking your posts.

I have a question - so has anybody struggled with knee pain in your other knee? I haven't until yesterday until I decided to sit in the living room all day and I guess my sofa is too low. I now have a very sore left knee and I know this doesn't even compare to having two knee reconstructions at once - that has to be unbearable! I am however feeling a wee bit sorry for myself.
 
Your other knee is probably compensating for what your operated knee can't do yet. Hopefully it will recover from having to to "take charge".

Less than 2 weeks after my surgery I got acute tendinitis in my left shoulder from using my arms so much getting up and in and out of the back seat of the car. The shoulder pain was 10 times worse than the knee, even that short a time after surgery. It finally settled down.

Hopefully all the resting you are doing for the one knee will help the other one.

Or, do what I do, just tell that other knee to stop hurting, we are not going through this surgery again. Be firm! So far it's working for me!
 
Irelandliz said:
so has anybody struggled with knee pain in your other knee? I haven't until yesterday until I decided to sit in the living room all day and I guess my sofa is too low. I now have a very sore left knee and I know this doesn't even compare to having two knee reconstructions at once - that has to be unbearable!
Click to expand...
Yes, this can happen sometimes. I think it's because the other knee is doing almost double-duty for a while, since your operated knee isn't yet taking its full share of your weight-bearing and moving around.

You could try icing and elevating that knee as well, to see if it helps.
Try to use your arms as well, to get up off the sofa, and also try sitting on a cushion, so that you re not quite so low.

When I had my right knee revised, in 2011, that was when I first started having pain in my left knee. I had the left knee replaced three years later.
 
Yes, my nurses and PTs always said to use my good leg and I'd reply that I didn't have a good leg. My left natural knee became less painful as my RTKR healed and took on more responsibility.
 
@Jockette thats my biggest fear now after what I went through with this surgery, I don't think I could knowingly elect to have that TKR surgery again :bawl: I've had tendinitis in my shoulder and that is very painful but I can't imagine having that pain together with the TKR pain - maybe the strong meds helped calm it down for you - I'm hoping that's what will happen with my left knee, that my pain meds will work for both.

@Celle i did what you said and iced both knees today and elevated them both and the pain has definitely eased in the 'good' knee thank goodness. I also stayed off the sofa and rested in my bed today instead. I think I may have just torqued my kneecap and it seems to have gone back into place if that's at all possible.

@KarriB i heard what you said about it feeling better as your recovery went on, and I think I just need to pay more attention to all my other parts and not just my bionic knee especially when easing out of a chair etc... one dodgy knee is enough at any one time lol
 
Well there are certainly enough aches and pains from all over that come with this surgery. I was careful with my natural knee, but just figured all the other soreness was from sitting so much as well as the trauma of surgery and tried not to focus on those other pains. Truly, I thought it was best to just get through that first month by sleeping and zoning out as much as possible to ignore all the pain.
 
The strong meds I was on didn't touch the shoulder. It finally settled down.

I will have to be desperate to do this knee surgery again. However, I had a partial replacement so there's a good chance I will have to have this one redone some time in the future. I thought I'd done a lot of reading about partials, but now I realize that reading was all on orthopedic sites which proclaimed all the positives of a partial and it's what my surgeon recommended.

To say I was unprepared for this recovery is an understatement.
 
@Celle Oh I hope mine does, too! I am so frustrated with this recovery and I really don't want to have to go through it again.

At the very least, I will be prepared if there's a next time. And no one will push on my knee next time. Before I found Bonesmart I didn't know I could say no to that.

Thanks again for all that you and the other staff members do guide us through this!
 
I found cutting a pool noodle and slipping it over my walker handle helped. I elevate with the ice machine on my knee and a heating pad to my low back/hip area reduces my muscle spasms. Honestly, I left the hospital early due to poor pain management, I felt like one total blimp of pain. Once I got home where I could care for myself my pain is about half what it was. I use the staggered stacked pillows, from my booty to my foot, this prevents the painful hyperextention by supporting the back of the knee. Hope you find relief soon. This truly was the most painful experience I've ever had, but all these stories from bonesmarties give me hope that 'this stage is fairly short lived.
 
Last edited:
Third day after Left TKR my good knee decided to **** out:censored:. Swelled up as large as the new one. I spent the next five days living on the recliner. Never thought I would be happy to be constipated. :snork: Ice and elevation along with the meds from surgery. They ran out Friday and was unable to get a refill till the Drs. office opened on Monday. That was a rough weekend. So I do understand where you are coming from. I am now at the end of week six post-op and it is still sore. Have gotten to used to it over the years and working through it. Gotta pay the mortgage. You know how that goes I'm sure. Anyway I have been thinking of getting cortezone and or synvisk shots if possible. Just haven't made the call yet. I just wear one of my braces and take stairs more slowly.
Listen to the ladies here they do offer sound advice. Heal Well
 
i also found that my good unoperated knee was feeling pain at times doing the bending, especially going down the stairs (operated knee down first), like others have said because it has been compensating for the new knee, even before surgery. now i use my new knee as much as possible, for example, walking downstairs and upstairs, alternate feet, even if i have to go slow and hold on to the handrails. since i'm 5 months post op and have gained enough r.o.m. for stairs, i can balance the movements of the knees so one doesn't have to work harder than the other. like you, i really don't ever want to go through this again; trying to preserve or conserve my natural right knee. oh and i hear you about the low sofa ~ i can now manage that but it is still a bit of a struggle standing up from sitting. :flwrysmile:
 
My sofa is not exceptionally low, and it has recliners on each end. I still use my hands on the seat to help me get up, but once I am halfway up I am able to push the back of my calves against the sofa to get the rest of the way up. I think because it is s recliner it is firm enough for me to do that. Maybe you could try that.

Getting my up from a dining room chair ia a whole different story. The table is a bit too high to lean on, though I do, and there's no room on the seat to push up with. It's very awkward and it does hurt my other knee. I don't sit at the table unles we have company.

Sigh, is our year (of recovery) up yet?
Can't wait to get there! This recovery got old a long time ago!
 
Prior to tkr, I'd always thought of my right knee as "The Bad Knee." And it is, but...not giving me too much trouble.... yet. In the first several weeks of recovery, it was under considerable strain (lots of stairs) and I iced and elevated it along with the tkr side. As the weeks went by and I placed more and more weight on the bionic knee, the symptoms eased up for the natural knee. All this to say, yes, this problem seems to happen for a lot of us!

My sofa was definitely too low so when I wanted to sit there, I'd throw a cushion on it from our outdoor furniture. The increased elevation made it much easier to get up and down; phew!

Like many here, I found other body parts complained as well. For me, it was lower back and opposite hip which happens to be bionic. Physical therapy has worked with me on both those issues and it's improved greatly since the first dark weeks of TKR recovery.

I knew going in this would be a very challenging, painful process because my OS laid it all out on the table. But...hearing that and experiencing it are two different things. I think it's impossible for anyone to really comprehend the magnitude of pain and disability until they've actually walked in these shoes. I've had a hip replaced and while it wasn't exactly a day at the beach, it really was much easier all around than the knee. The knee is a bear!

The good news? It improves! Mine certainly isn't *perfect* yet, but it's so much better at 4+months than it was just awhile ago. I found big improvements occurred between Weeks 6-12 and I hope you will as well. Hang in there!
 
Hi everyone so I'm grateful once again to read all your recovery stories - it makes this recovery a lot easier to bear when I'm not sitting here thinking my pains and tribulations are unique and therefore I must be doing something wrong!!

The last few days have been good ones, I've done simple exercises and several laps of my living room with the Walker as I feel I walk better with it than the cane.

The one new and not enjoyable thing I have to tell you are the extremely sharp and unexpected nerve pains I've been getting shooting through the knee cap. Usually about 3-4 of them then they just stop but not before I've woken the dead with my shrieks!

Other than these though my pain has been tolerable.

I have a friend arrived yesterday to keep me company and help me a bit while my husband is in New Jeraey watching golf this week. What would we do without friends !! :friends:
 
Enjoy your visit with your friend!

Those zingers are normal, mine would occasionally make my leg jump. I rarely get them anymore and if I do now they are very mild.

I liked my walker better than the cane too, I did feel more stable with it and when I let go of it, it stood there and took care of itself. My cane did not stand alone and that was annoying when I needed both hands for something.
 
Yes, those zingers are surprising! They caused my leg to jump also, but they'll stop eventually.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Active Antimicrobial Hydrogel

Staff online

Members online

Total: 1,917 (members: 3, guests: 1,914)

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom