TKR Carole’s recovery thread

[Carole4815]

I hope your shot at the moving target of the ODIC line was spot on and today will be another excellent day.

So far, so good! At least I am not miserable so far and the swelling was not too bad. I am icing, icing, icing this morning while drinking my morning coffee. I am hoping that today turns out to be similar to yesterday, but without the PT. A lot depends on stamina but we'll see.

 

[Carole4815]

WooHoo!! Excellent progress and what fun to have a sweetie to take you around and be by your side! Enjoy your time together and you will totally forget about the knee soon!

You are so right - - he is everything to me! We have such a good time together, and he is almost more thrilled with my knee progress than I am. What a wonderful guy.

 

[sewhat]

Good for you, Carole. I'm proud of you!

 

[Carole4815]

I guess PT wasn't too bad because I am doing OK today and was able to go out to lunch with him again. Afterwards I had a hard time standing from the chair, though! I almost thought I was stuck but managed to stand after a few unsuccessful tries. I guess that if we go there every day, like we always used to do, eventually the muscles will build up and it won't be as hard to do as it is now.

 

[Poctdb]

@Carole4815
Why not try some arm weights?
They don’t hurt the knee and you have a whole body to consider.
Exercise of any kind is the enemy of higher blood sugar numbers.
I took my cane to the gym and it waited patiently for me by the machine.
Your walker would wait too....

 

[Carole4815]

@Carole4815
Why not try some arm weights?

(See, this is one of those situation where those reading my posts can't actually grasp my real situation, because you can't SEE what I am and do in my daily life. If you could, you would never, ever have chosen to post that.

Before TKR surgery I have been almost transporting myself by my arms and shoulders alone, applying most of my weight to the handles of my rollator walker while hopping on my left foot and touching the ground with my tippy toes only on the right hand side. Consequently my arms and shoulders are insanely strong and my hands are covered with massive callouses as well; I do not need "some arm weights" to have strong arms and upper body.

On the other hand, a chair that either had armrests or was not so low, so that I could use my upper body strength to help me stand, would have been so nice today. Unfortunately none of the chairs at that restaurant are like that. But as I described, this was a temporary dilemma that I have already overcome. Even better, as my quads and other knee/leg muscles regain their pre-surgical strength rising from those chairs will become as easy to do as before surgery. I guess I can regard this as my daily quads exercise. )​

How did we ever get off on this tangent? My goodness. I thought I was just describing a nice day after PT when I discovered that PT left me with lots of stamina even the next day, and I was able to have so much fun doing the things I used to do before "TKR jail". I had a great time today followed by a brief and satisfying nap after I got home.

 

[Poctdb]

@Carole4815
My apologies if you thought this was inappropriate.
It certainly was not intended to be “a tangent”

 

[Carole4815]

My apologies if you thought this was inappropriate.
It certainly was not intended to be “a tangent”

I didn't think it was "inappropriate", so much as very strange given that nobody else here was talking about anything having to do with upper body workouts. What inspired your post? You didn't refer to any other post in this very long thread so I couldn't see any connection. Of the many people who post here, why do you think I am the one who needs a suggestion to work out with arm weights? There just wasn't any connection to me, my situation, or to anything we were talking about in the thread as far as I could see. This is what is meant by saying something is a bit of a tangent in a thread. Was it posted in the wrong thread or something? Guess I didn't "get it".

Getting back on topic, what did you think about my several posts about what a great day I had, both yesterday and today? I think that was what we were talking about, right? I was describing a nice day after PT when I discovered that PT left me with lots of stamina even the next day, and I was able to have so much fun doing the things I used to do before "TKR jail". I had a great time today followed by a brief and satisfying nap after I got home.

 

[luvcats]

I"m so glad you didn't overdo at PT! I'm glad you have someone good you're working with.

How lovely to be getting back to some of your regular activities that you've been missing so long. It must be lovely for your sweetie to have your company for outings. I know my Beloved is looking forward to that too.

 

[Carole4815]

I"m so glad you didn't overdo at PT! I'm glad you have someone good you're working with.

How lovely to be getting back to some of your regular activities that you've been missing so long. It must be lovely for your sweetie to have your company for outings. I know my Beloved is looking forward to that too.

Thanks! I hope I didn't overdo. I must admit that this morning my knee is pretty swollen compared with yesterday, for no reason that I can discern. I plan to ice for most of the morning and hopefully that will subside before this afternoon's PT. Luckily it is a Friday so I will have two days off from PT after that.

I think my own personal philosophy about PT is that as long as it isn't doing me any harm, why not. It is free for me and I have a hard time passing up a free benefit (if it is indeed a benefit, ha ha!) But if it does do harm then I need to intervene. I admit that I love exercise and miss going to the gym, and some of the things we do at PT are sort of like the gym. But I do not like the ODIC so that is why I need to watch them like a hawk.

And yes, my sweetie really does seem so happy that I am feeling better and that we can get out and DO things again. Twice in his life he has been caregiver for loved ones who were terminally ill, and he says it is a wonderful experience to do the same for me and yet see me improving instead of getting worse. Maybe if/when my knee is fully recovered, we can even resume our habit of going to the gym 3-4 days a week like we always used to do until a few years ago.

 

[LindaO]

Excellent to have stamina after PT! I was always wiped out afterwards so that shows you are definitely making excellent improvement in all areas! Keep up the good work and enjoy your time out with your sweetie!

 

[sewhat]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the ODIC?

 

[alexthecat]

ODIC is the legendary Over Did It Club.

Sent from my SM-S327VL using Tapatalk

 

[Carole4815]

Today's PT was challenging but I think I kept it sane. I did tell the PT on two exercises that I would only go so far, and they were nice about it. But on some other exercises I wanted to push a little and did, so we'll see how that turned out later this weekend.

The hardest exercise for me was a machine they (jokingly, perhaps?) called "The Extensionator". It pushes the knee to straighten more by squeezing a bulb to pump air into a thingie that straightens the knee. Hard to explain. She made sure I had the controls and understood how to use them, so any pushing was done by me and I could back off quickly any time it didn't feel right. She didn't tell me how far to go with it and left it all completely up to me. This type of stretching is something I wanted to do, because I need to encourage those soft tissues around my knee like muscles, tendons, and so on, to stretch out and eventually allow my knee to straighten again. Right now I have 17 degrees and I really would like for my knee to comfortably straighten more, so I had already planned to gently work at that on my own at some point, if it wasn't done in PT like it was today. Might as well take advantage of their equipment.

Since returning home my knee feels tired but ok while I am sitting in my recliner doing nothing. I plan to ice and elevate tonight and otherwise do very little. I am pretty excited about the work on extension and looking forward to seeing what sort of results, if any, were gained from that.

 

[Jamie]

Carole, did the device look something like this?

I'll be interested to see if it works for you.

 

[Carole4815]

Yes, Jamie!! That was the device. I'll be sure to report on any results that I see from it.

Right now, my knee extension of 17 degrees is enough that I can't really sit with my knees stretched out flat in front of me, as on a bed or recliner, without discomfort; after a while I have to rotate my leg at the hip a bit, in order to allow the knee some bend towards the side.. Not the end of the world, but annoying enough that I want to try gentle stretching of the muscles and tendons and so on and this device seems to be designed to do that.

 

[luvcats]

Right now, my knee extension of 17 degrees is enough that I can't really sit with my knees stretched out flat in front of me, as on a bed or recliner, without discomfort; after a while I have to rotate my leg at the hip a bit, in order to allow the knee some bend towards the side.

What a fascinating PT machine!
That sounds like my left knee pre-surgery. It just Did Not straighten. If you are comfortable sitting on your bed, this is something that I did a lot of during the healing to encourage my extension. I would sit on the side of the bed so my 'good' (pre-surgery) leg had the foot on the floor and my hips were angled so that the surgery leg is extended more or less straight in front of me, flat-ish on the bed. I would sit like that for a while, reading or something, and then on and off I'd reach forward towards the toes encouraging the stretch. Just sitting like that passively gave some stretch. If you feel you want to work it, I would sometimes put my arm on my thigh, somewhere it definitely didn't hurt, and I would lean in, just a bit. It helped me loosen up those muscles and ligaments that had been bent for years and needed to remember how to be long!

I hope you once again found the right side of the line and aren't dealing with an unhappy knee today. I find I'm looking forward to getting to PT and working with the guy I saw last time. It was a very positive experience.

 

[Carole4815]

For those interested in The Extensionator, there's a video online showing it in use. For me here in the US, the video is the first one that appears when you go to Youtube and search on "The knee extensionator". It might show up in a different order in other countries (I have no idea).

@luvcats , I have been doing a similar thing on my recliner from the start, keeping my leg as straight as I can while the recliner is in the "legs up" position and even leaning forwards sometimes. But I can only do that for so long, and not continually or it gets very tired and achy and I just have to quit. I think that probably I will benefit from the stretching you describe and from any kind of gentle stretching that I can get. One thing I like about "The Extensionator" is that it very carefully and firmly holds the entire leg in a certain position so all the soft tissues get stretched, not some at the expense of others.

Last night I had to take 5 mg hydrocodone to get to sleep, because the (mild) pain, plus zingers and occasional muscle cramps were keeping me up. I am sure that nights like this sound all too familiar to everyone here. I had lots of the internal discussion, "Should I take a pain pill? Should I not?" because the pain was totally bearable and mild, but then I couldn't sleep. So I finally gave in and took one. I was a little bit mad at myself about taking hydrocodone, because I broke my "17 days with no pain pills" streak. But then, that is what they are for and I reminded myself that recovery is not a contest.

I should keep a giant sign on my wall right in front of me saying that:
"Recovery is Not a Contest." in letters 2 feet high. Then maybe I'd get a clue.

Anyway, due to the hydrocodone I slept for 7 hours straight which was utterly blissful, and my knee was busy healing and un-swelling while I slept so it feels better today. I think I will spend most of the day resting, icing, and elevating, though. Then hopefully tomorrow I will be 100% back to normal, and on Monday PT again.

 

[sewhat]

7 hours of sleep! That sounds like heaven. I can't remember the last time I had 7 whole hours of sleep at one time.

 

[Carole4815]

7 hours of sleep! That sounds like heaven. I can't remember the last time I had 7 whole hours of sleep at one time.

Sleeping that long is wonderful when we can do it. Definitely heavenly.

I feel like I heal SO much better when I sleep deeply like that.