TKR Carole’s recovery thread

That sounds like a lovely day. About like mine yesterday. We went down to the Potomac waterfront just to enjoy being outside on a lovely day. Freedom feels amazing.
 
What fun!!! I am SO glad that you were able to get outside and enjoy the Potomac waterfront.

Now that you have new knees, before too long you will be able to go so many places and do so many things. There is a whole world out there waiting for you. :)

More sleep issues last night. (sigh) I am sure that for me, sleep problems are part of my TKR recovery.
 
Last edited:
OK, I accidentally took FIVE HOUR nap this afternoon from I think maybe around 3:30-8:30. :sleep: It was delicious but I was pretty distressed when I figured out it was 8:30 PM when I awakened, and not 8:30 AM. This is ridiculous! :rotfl: People actually sleep at night and stay awake during the day? What a strange concept. :rotfl:
However, I have just begun to fight. I just had a great idea :idea: :idea: :idea: which might help my sleep issues. I will call it Plan B, and tomorrow I am proceeding with it (if I remember to do so). That is to go buy a bottle of plain acetaminophen 500 mg, and try taking one around midnight when I usually go to bed. I am not aware of much pain but I am a very light sleeper, so maybe the low level, almost imperceptible pain is what is keeping me from sleeping at night. Plus, that pain gets magnified quite a bit in the dark while I am trying to go to sleep.

Even though they put me to sleep like magic, I don't want to start taking my hydrocodone+acetaminophen pills any more (have only taken 2 since August, none for the past month). But I can take plain acetaminophen without the hydrocodone, and still continue to drive as always. Also I wouldn't be drugging myself with opioids just to sleep (which to me is nuts). Seems like it might be worth a try. I checked and I don't take any other meds with acetaminophen in them.
 
Last edited:
@Carole4815 sleepless nights are awful regarding sleeping pills maybe check with Jamie she always answers my queries about medication @Jamie

I seem to sleep a couple of hours at a time, usually the knee pain wakes me up ( not sure why ) must be position I sleep in as I'm fully medicated or maybe as my days aren't overly active... just wish my old sleeping pattern would return :mcoffee::bored:
 
Carole, if you're going to take acetaminophen like this to help you sleep, I recommend that you take a 1000mg dose instead of 500mg. Usually 500mg just isn't enough for recovery from joint replacement. The two pills are a "normal" dose, so you'll be fine with it. But it will do a better job of knocking any minor pain and allowing you to relax and sleep. You might even want to take the dose about an hour before you go to bed, as it takes a little time to do its job. This has worked quite well for me and I hope it does for you too.
 
Today's little improvement: When we went out to lunch, it was pouring rain and the best parking place I could find was on the other side of the lot and down a few cars. I decided to walk across the parking lot to the restaurant without my walker (or cane, or any device like that), and did. Doing this was surprisingly easy. :)

A half hour ago I took 1000 mg of acetaminophen as planned to see if it helps me get to sleep. Bedtime is sometime in the next half hour.
 
Last edited:
Hopefully by the time I'm writing this you are in the land of nod :sleep:
I'm just getting up from a not to bad sort of night woke at 1:30 am and again at 07.25am today I start PT in the afternoon so finger crossed it will be nice just to get out of the house as the facility is 30 minutes drive away and see some people :friends:- we live in the country with no neighbours so pretty much only see my doggies :doggie:and husband weekdays unless I drive somewhere which at the moment is a no, no.
So good to see that you are out and about and walking without Aids - hope for us all xxxx
 
@Sara61, I hope your PT session is a good one! Glad you will be able to get out of the house. I remember my first trip out of the house, and it was wonderful just to see my neighborhood. I just checked this thread, and for me that was on August 28th which was only 15 days after surgery. But it seemed like 100 years.

I think that acetaminophen at bedtime is helping my sleep problems. At least, last night after trying this for the first time, I slept deeply and uninterrupted for 6.5 hours, without even a trek down the hall. That is a lot of night time sleep for me these days, in my bed, and truly restful and restorative. I feel so good right now. Of course, time will tell but I am hopeful. :)

I am enjoying my first cup of coffee. Ah! Sleep? Coffee? The small joys of life.
 
Last edited:
Last night I took 1000 mg of acetaminophen an hour before bedtime, again, and once again slept well! I got almost 7 hours' deep and satisfying sleep despite taking an accidental two hour nap yesterday afternoon. Honestly I think the past couple of days have been the only good sleep I have had since August during the first two weeks after surgery when I was on opiates. I sure hope this sleep pattern continues. It might be that this was all I needed to fix my sleep issues (but we'll see).

Yesterday, once again, I left my rollator in the SUV when we went into the restaurant and didn't use any cane, walker, or other assistive device. It is so much easier to not have to deal with anything like that and I feel like at this stage an occasional brief time without the rollator is good (and not excessive) exercise for my new knee.

My weight and blood sugar are both up, and I have a routine appointment with my internist/endocrinologist tomorrow. Not good! Hopefully he will understand that some of this is related to after-effects from my surgery.
 
Another improvement that I just realized this second, after reading about zingers in another thread.... I haven't had any zingers in quite a while! Maybe a couple of weeks? I really don't know. It's nice to not have zingers so often any more.
:flwrysmile:
 
Keeping my fingers crossed for your appointment tomorrow and well done on walking unassisted what a milestone - must feel very good :) and thankfully you are now getting a good nights sleep :sleep:
What are Zingers ??
 
Thank you! :thankyou:

Zingers are sudden mild, but sharp feeling very temporary pains near the surgical area, for no apparent reason. They are supposedly due to nerves in there that got cut during surgery, but are re-attaching.
 
Thank you for the explanation I have felt this too - good to have a name for it xx
 
More ramblings.... :loll:

Left my rollator in the SUV at lunch again today. My sweetie is feeling less nervous about me doing this now. The first day he was pretty perturbed and worried that I was not ready for it, but then he saw that I could do it and eventually adjusted to that idea.

Then, after we came home my sweetie wanted me to try walking with just his trekking poles instead of my rollator or cane. He's getting more accustomed to the idea of me ditching the rollator I guess and he deserves a lot of credit for being so flexible in his caregiving. :) So anyway, I briskly walked down the driveway and back with just his trekking poles, about 150 feet. The trekking poles just help with balance since you can't really put any weight on them. Interesting experience, and definitely good for me.

Also I talked to him about stairs. I haven't been near any stairs that I could try, since surgery. But our gym has wonderful stairs, that are not too steep and have unusually sturdy hand rails. There is also an elevator if I needed it to get back down. So anyway, we are going to go by there in a few days so that I can try stairs.

He also said that we can start going to the gym regularly again next week. Hope he doesn't change his mind on that. If we go I will keep "not overdoing" as my top priority since next week will be only my 12th week of recovery. There are plenty of upper body machines there that don't involve knees at all but would let me exercise my arm muscles. Also there are a few machines that involve knees that I could very VERY gently try, like the recumbent bikes or seated elliptical or the Nustep seated stair stepper. If I decide to try them then I will start with much, much less than I think I can do, almost nothing, with zero resistance and not for very long.

Or, if I wanted to I could walk around their climate controlled indoor track instead. It is a nice, safe, even surface and would be a good place to build up my walking distances (again, very very slowly). The inner lane has a sturdy rail to hold on to if desired, and that is where the slowest walkers are supposed to be so it would be perfect.

OK, a lot of this post was more about my hopes for the future than about things I have actually done, yet. Thinking about this sort of expansion of my horizons is almost as exciting as thinking about going for a ride in a car was, during my first and second week.
 
Last edited:
My husband and I went to Lowe’s yesterday to order a new refrigerator and ended up getting a really nice walk in the store. Home Depot is much closer, so maybe when the weather gets colder we’ll go there and just take a walk around the perimeter. My local Target is another of my personal favorite indoor walking spots, but I usually end up buying something there! :heehee:
 
I used to go to my local mall to practice stairs. There is one nice set of stairs with the treads just the right height and handrails on both sides.
I often wondered if people thought I was crazy, going up and down the stairs several times.
 
When you go walking like that do you swell up in the evening I do so is that normal.
 
When you go walking like that do you swell up in the evening I do so is that normal.
You have to figure out what is an appropriate walking length/time for your knee. If your knee swells up after an activity then that activity was too much for you.
 

BoneSmart #1 Best Blog

Staff online

Forum statistics

Threads
65,181
Messages
1,597,074
BoneSmarties
39,365
Latest member
Dave4562
Recent bookmarks
0
Back
Top Bottom