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TKR Crazy Tom's post apocalyptic TKR Thread

@CRAZY TOM hang in there, I'm a little over a week ahead of you and it really feels like I've turned the corner in the last few days. I realized I'm hours over due for my Tylenol but I'm not in any pain, not icing all night, just more comfortable in general. I have numbness but not burning, that has to be annoying, but I had the same numbness after an anterior cruciate ligament replacement and though it got better over a number of years it never completely went away. It seems from viewing this site some people have the nerve heal after time, but I don't expect to be one of the based on my past experience.
 
Question to you all that are in their 10 to 15 week recovery stage. If you had the annoying numbness and burning sensation did it help to walk more on the knee?
I know if I try to walk more my swelling seems increase, but I just cant keep from thinking that increasing activity will help heal the nerves faster causing that numbness sensation.

I'm doing my icing with gel packs when swelling occurs, and for no more than 30 minutes. I use the icechest at work as well. Even though it's a hassle disconnecting everytime I get up ou th of my chair to help a customer.

I'm thinking maybe I should walk a mile or 2 in the morning to promote healing and to keep stiffness out. And I still get red a little on my knee and some heat, but once I ice it goes away add I dont think theres any infection. I know i keep singing the same song and dance, I guess just impatient.
 
@CRAZY TOM Unfortunately I don't think anything but time will help the nerves heal. When I had my ACL replaced in 1997 I had the same issue and though it got better it never completely went away, and now I'm back to where I was then. I had similar issues with the ankle replacement but at somewhere near the 1 year mark the nerves healed completely. As with everything else in this recovery no two of us are alike.
 
CRAZY TOM said:
I know if I try to walk more my swelling seems increase
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Anything that increases swelling is not promoting healing.

I’m 2 years post op and my numb area is almost non existent.

At approximately 3 months post op you are only 25% healed in this year long, on average, recovery.
 
If you do decide to walk, start with a 1/4 mile for a few days. Ice when you're done and convince yourself that your leg is back to where it was before you walked. In other words, recover from the walk.

Once you're convinced you're recovering, increase the walk to 1/2 mile, etc.

You may find you blow right through the shorter walks and get up to your "mile or 2" pretty quickly but by doing it this way you won't get any surprises.

When I was at 2 weeks post op I walked across the parking lot at Rite Aid (100ft?) to get a coffee while my wife was in the store. When I got home I was stunned to find my leg blew up from that small amount of walking. I iced and elevated until the swelling went down, back to where it was.

When I saw my PT that week I told him what happened. He asked me what happened after I iced. When I told him it went back down he said that's all that matters.

I've used that as my guide ever since. Whatever I do, I make sure I can recover from it.

To put a finer point on it, the last thing you'd want to do is walk again if you haven't recovered from the previous walk. That would be bad.
 
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Well tomorrow is wk 13, thought I'd report in and share thoughts and insights. Far as stiffness not much change since last post. By cutting back on icing sessions to no more than twice a day, it had improved the burning sensation. So I hardly wear ice to bed.
My sleep duration has improved on the no waking on the hour.
My leg still feels like I'm wearing a cast most of the time which is annoying.
If I stay on my feet too long my legs both get sore and swollen particularly my non op knee. I done a furniture shopping run and wallyworld tour the other day and I was hurting like hell a 2 tramadol and icing alarm that night and pretty swollen the next day.
All in all I'll just confess I was expecting to be further along, but everyone says I'm as actually ahead of the game. I think once the other one is said and done my outlook will improve.
 
I have had numbness down the front of my leg to bottom of incision, and on lateral side of knee. I am at week 12 tomorrow, and the numbness on front of leg is decreasing, now mostly at knee, and side of knee. It seems like knee is warmer this past week as numbness resolves, don't know if that is connected. I have had some mild zingers off and on, nothing major.
 
Well haven't been on in a while. While I'd like to say I'm doing great I cant say that. My knee is still numb on left, and if I'm up on it too much it swells. I have been icing again twice a day. It seems like I'm not a lot better off than I was the last time I posted. I'm kind of disappointed so far. I get the right one done in November and feel like I haven't recovered from this one yet.
I mean sure I'm better off than before the operation, but was expecting more by now. I know it takes a year to recover, but seems like very little progress going on.
IM wondering if I should force more usage to get the stiffness out. Plus my knee cap has knot swollen at the bottom of it.
The pain isnt real bad, just normal stiffness and uncomfortable swelling. My doctor told me all looked well and says looked good and scheduled my next visit for Oct. I'm thinking I need to go back and have a earlier visit.
Has anyone else had this plateau in the healing process at the time frame I'm at ?
I will go back for the right one, but must admit this is discouraging.
 
CRAZY TOM said:
My knee is still numb on left, and if I'm up on it too much it swells.
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That numbness could be with you for a long time yet. It's normal.
Numb area after TKR: how long will it last?

CRAZY TOM said:
IM wondering if I should force more usage to get the stiffness out. Plus my knee cap has knot swollen at the bottom of it.
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No,don't do that.
More usage will just make your knee more swollen.

All your knee needs is time. It's still not 6 months since you had this major surgery, so it will be at least another 6 months before your knee is completely healed. From now on, progress will seem to be slow, but that's the way it goes.

There's no way you can speed up your recovery, no matter how much you want to.
Where are you in recovery?? (TKR)
 
I had much more improvement after my one year anniversary, and even more improvement after my second.

Where you are now is not where you will end up.
 
Thanks for the pep talk. I'm just discouraged I guess. I believe in result enhancements, and have a hard time adjusting to something I cant seem to control. I wanting to get this done then get the right one done and move on, but seems like it's not going to work that way. Just have to accept its a very slow process. But I hate the way it seems like it's starting get there and then the next day im sore and swollen.
I dont take anything for the soreness, but it's still annoying enough to wake me some nights. I have found wrapping my knee with a ace bandage seems to help with soreness through the day.
I think the thought of getting my right knee done and this one is still a annoyance enters my mind.
I thank you all for the support and listening to my rants. Lol
 
You aren't even halfway through the minimum of a year's healing. Please don't get discouraged. We all get impatient and want to be healed much sooner than our bodies are able to do. I still swelled for about 9 months after extra activity. Icing and elevating always helped.
 
I totally understand how you feel about struggling to accept the length of this recovery. Our medical teams are very quiet about the subject of recovery. They quickly gloss it over before surgery and it’s not until we are in recovery, with no way to go but forward, that the truth comes out.

I had a partial. Promoted to have a quicker recovery than a total. I was shocked, at one month post op, when I found Bonesmart, to learn that complete recovery takes a full year, even for a partial. What I had read before hand, and what my surgeon’s office did and did not say, made me think I would be fully recovered in 2-3 months. As month after month went by I had to continually readjust my thoughts. It was very frustrating.

But it really is true that it takes a long time, and things do get better.

However, I also know how hard it is to realize that you have to do it again with the other knee. My partial will not last as long as a total, and, it hasn’t been successful. There’s almost a guarantee that it will have to be converted to a total some time in the future. My other knee is iffy, but I keep trying to ignore it.
 
I consistently underestimate my need for taking something. And the correlation between pain/soreness and the quality of my sleep is direct! Still taking tylenol and celebrex (osteoarthritis).
My 2 PKR recoveries have gone exactly as my OS said. Up and walking day of surgery. Careful progression of assigned exercises and slow walking (no formal PT). Pretty normal, increasing functioning from
weeks 4-8. A full year at least of recovery for all parts of the leg, with warmth, nerve sensitivity, etc, expected the whole time. So in that respect, I thankfully was prepared for a year or more. I do not like surprises.
 
I can totally relate to how the numb spot weighs on your mind. Mine is about the size of the palm of my hand. Every once in a while I poke around with my fingernail to see if it's going away at all, but half the time I think I'm kidding myself. I keep telling myself, well on my left knee the numb spot eventually must have gone away since I don't have one, but on the other hand, I don't remember it ever being numb. Not like this. But I must have had one since I had two operations through the same incision in a 3 month period. Is it even possible to miss that nerve?

You mention "stiffness". I don't know if it's old age or a side-effect of the operation, but no matter how much I walk (about a mile and a half a day) every time I get up from a sitting position, it's as if my whole body is partially seized up like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz and I have to slowly get it oiled again and then after a few minutes I'm walking normally again. Sometimes I wonder if I should never sit down at all and just keep walking and moving all day until it's time to go to bed.

I don't remember being this creaky before the operation, and I would love to know if it's a normal and natural reaction to all the trauma, or if it's just coincidentally something I'm noticing more now in my old age.
 
robert johnson said:
I can totally relate to how the numb spot weighs on your mind. Mine is about the size of the palm of my hand. Every once in a while I poke around with my fingernail to see if it's going away at all, but half the time I think I'm kidding myself. I keep telling myself, well on my left knee the numb spot eventually must have gone away since I don't have one, but on the other hand, I don't remember it ever being numb. Not like this. But I must have had one since I had two operations through the same incision in a 3 month period. Is it even possible to miss that nerve?

You mention "stiffness". I don't know if it's old age or a side-effect of the operation, but no matter how much I walk (about a mile and a half a day) every time I get up from a sitting position, it's as if my whole body is partially seized up like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz and I have to slowly get it oiled again and then after a few minutes I'm walking normally again. Sometimes I wonder if I should never sit down at all and just keep walking and moving all day until it's time to go to bed.

I don't remember being this creaky before the operation, and I would love to know if it's a normal and natural reaction to all the trauma, or if it's just coincidentally something I'm noticing more now in my old age.
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I can relate to the tin man effect. As well as the burning sensation. Lol That's what I experience when I get up in the morning or after sitting in my recliner for a while You would think you would actually feel better resting, but I'm stiff as well.
 
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