Roxie, my leg is a little stiff in the morning. I feel some tightness on the outside and around the top. Where my calf muscles and my hamstrings meet at the back of the knee, I have some soreness. I haven't been able to knock that out yet. None of that impedes me in any way; it's just mildly annoying. The real pain for me is where the front thigh muscles join at the top of the knee. When I stand from a seated position, two weeks ago and before, it was excruciating -- around a five on the pain scale. (In all seriousness, I told my husband a few weeks ago we needed to replace our upstairs toilet with a taller one -- he's blowing me off, and I'm mildly annoyed about that.)
I reached a point in PT where we were working on sit to stand. It improved somewhat -- pain reduced to about a 4. I discussed it specifically with my PT on Tuesday, and he gave me something to do -- basically hang off the sink and slowly bend as far as I could leaning backwards, then use my arms to pull myself up. I did three sets of ten.
I noticed today, that the sharp pain in the center of my knee was almost gone but the sharp pain is now on either side of that place. My PT says that's good -- the center muscle is getting stronger, and we're going to work on the the others.
As we keep working through this physical therapy, we discuss the latest concerns and address them. He's also working with me on my right knee to get it into as good a shape as possible in preparation for replacement next year. Sadly, while my left knee is feeling better and better, my right knee is feeling worse (but I expect that). While my left knee has a lot of healing to go, I firmly believe my right knee is my limiting factor now.
I think I have six sessions to go. He's going to give me some exercises I can do after my carpal tunnel release, too.
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