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maumeefootball

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I have been on the forum for a couple of weeks now awaiting my surgery LTKR Mar 18th. I have noticed that a large portion of the threads and questions are dedicated to pain and pain management. As almost all of us have had at least one and more likely several knee surgeries prior to TKR let me pose a question. How does the pain of the knee replacement compare to other prior surgeries that you have had? My impression is that TKR is dramatically more intense then any other. Am I correct in this assumption? One of my concerns is that I am not able to tolerate the heavy duty meds, the little green men start to chase come after me, and I would like to have a better idea of what I am going to be going through.

Don
 
Don,

Sorry to hear you have to go through LTKR. To answer your question on the surgery, well here goes. In my short life so far of 63 yrs, I have been lucky enough to have had surgery on my right shoulder, back, left ankle, left knee and scope on my right knee. So when my OS said that my knees needed to be replaced, I said let’s do both at the same time, I can handled it. She informed me that it was a rough operation, but I said I have been through all the joints so far, so bring it on. Should have listen!!!!! I do not want to scare you but the surgery is HELL. For the other surgeries that I had, the pain was over after a couple of days. I needed to be heavily medicated for the first two weeks on this one. Starting the third week, my life started to come back and things continue to get better each passing day. I have just made it to my 5th month post op and still have some stiffness but my knees are great. No pain and I can do anything I want. I even can get down in the floor and get up. My rom is up to 125 in both knees and my goal is to be at 130 by the spring. Good luck Don, the people here on the forum will take very good care of you and everything will be for the best.

God Bless,
Rick
 
Don, I have had 7 surgeries on my knee prior to my TKR on Dec 18th. The last one was an ACL reconstruction. while it's been quite some time ago I do remember alot of pain associated with it. I had also had several scopes, which were also quite painfull.

For me, and I know that everone is differant the first two weeks after my TKR the pain was intense, but with the pain meds it was managable. Just when I thought it would never end I woke up one day and the pain was almost gone. Another thing to remember is ICE, ICE, ICE.

Mike
 
Yes,
It is painfull but pain passes. And then you will have a great knee that will not need to be worked on!! I to am going in for the left now. I am 3 weeks out from the right. And believe me it has been interesting. But you have to remember these new knees are going to give us our lifes back.
God Bless
^i^
 
Can't add much more to that. They've pretty well covered it!
 
The only thing I could add is that even though the pain is intense the first couple of weeks (lesser when properly controlled with pain meds), it is a very different kind of pain than what you are experiencing now. For me....because my new knee was so stable and secure, it was easier to work with that pain. I didn't have to be constantly worrying that my joint was going to fail or that pain would shoot through when I didn't expect it. There was no pain at all when just standing. But I won't kid you, the first couple of weeks are rough and you no doubt will have times when you wonder why you did this to yourself. Then time passes, therapy and pain meds do their magic, and you begin to have a life again.
 
Hi Don.....I'm one of those who had also had numerous knee surgeries--everything from scopes to major bilateral reconstruction/realignment. I thought the TKR would be similar to one of the major surgeries but I was way off. NOTHING prepared me for this pain!

But, like the others have said, this pain passes and you're left with a pain-free knee that feels good to walk on. The temporary pain is worth it. Well, temporary is a matter of opinion, some people don't think that several months is "temporary" and I didn't in the past, but I've learned.

As one of those who tried to cut down too fast on pain meds the first time around, I can really reinforce the recommendations to take enough pain meds and stick to a schedule, especially for the first couple months (or as long as YOU need it!). I bought into my first OS's idea that it shouldn't hurt that much and ended up hurting like crazy until I found this group and got some good info.

Weezy
 
I've had 4 knee surgeries and one Shoulder surgery. For me, the worst pain was when I had an infected knee (resulting from a cortisone shot!) that my surgeon had to just go in and clean it out. (It was a systemic infection...IV antibiotics at home for weeks, etc) I also developed a blood clot during that time....That was some terrible pain! Plus, because of the infection, my knee was the size of a football and I think that that kind of swelling makes the pain unbearable! I found that with both of my TKRs,(my left was done 16 days ago) keeping ahead of the pain with medication (don't try to hold out ...take it in a timely manner, at least for the first couple of weeks) and being vigilant as far as keeping the swelling down (ice and elevation) really has kept my pain in the baerable range...no worse than my torn meniscus surgery....TKR pain will last for more than a few days, of course, but I did not find the intensity to be much more. Just keep up with the meds!!!
 
A big thank you to all who responded. It sounds like there is generally a rough two week period and then things improve. One of the reasons I was asking is so that I can make plans for my recovery period. My wife works long hours and we have 4 pets so this will allow me to plan accordingly. I have learned from reading on this board how important it is to stay ahead of the pain. Since I react negatively to the high level pain killers I will need to consult with my surgeon as to the best way to handle the meds.

It interesting how careful you have to be when discussing this with doctors, and how you have to make sure they understand. Not to gross anyone out but an internal medicine doc took the pain med situation a little to literally and didn't give me enough meds when doing a routine colonoscopy. So I woke up halfway through the procedure. Not a lot of fun that one.

Don
 
Don -- as you may have guessed reading the posts, the TKR pain is differnent for everyone. I had absolutely NO pain. At any time. I attribute that to being in decent shape physically, the skill of my surgeon and the extremely good pain management worked out by my surgeon and the hospital. I just can't stress enough how important this is - especially the first 3 or 4 days. Ask your surgeon what he uses and what to expect. and tell him about your problem with regular narcotic pain meds. For the first day my surgeon used some kind of numbing drip through the epidural which was left in place which controled all pain in the knee but left my leg(s) feeling normal so I could walk and stand. Then they switched to a morphine type IV which made me nauseous (they added an anti-nausea drug) and then to Percocet which screwed up my vision because it dries you out - dry mouth etc. I was on Celebrex and Lyrica plus aspirin as a blood thinner for 2 weeks and now just aspirin continuing for another 4 weeks at least. I take 3 extra strength Tylenal for PT and 2 for just doing the exercises myself. Which means during much of the day I am on Tylenol. The Celebrex and Lyrica are powerful anti-inflammatories as is aspirin. This is for your information; other surgeons may have other combinations that work well. But many surgeons give their patients basically nothing but the Percocets or something similar which I don't think are enough at the beginning. so you need to ask.
Good luck. I had an ACL repair at the dawn of sports medicine in 1981 (skiiing fall) and the pain the first day was terrible - and I didn't get the morphine shot quickly enough so it was never really controlled. A meniscus trim arthroscopically (sp?) wasn't painful after the novocaine wore off. Just a little dull ache.
and one more thing. Which everyone has said. Ice, ice, ice! After every set of exercises. After you walk any distance or stand any length of time. It makes all the difference. And at the hospital the 2 nights I was there they packed my knee in ice before putting on the immobilizer.
Visualize your goals with your new knee and call that up when the going gets tough.
and post on this forum; you'll get sympathy and support and information!!!
Stephani
 
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