I wouldn't be surprised if all that peeling is from your extra swelling for so long. Your skin got stretched out and now that it's going back down closer to normal, the stretched skin is no longer needed, so it sheds off. (At least, that's my completely amateur theory! ) I've been using Shea butter on my leg in the dry areas, and it has helped. I also have one (tiny) area that has a scab, where one side of the skin is healing higher than the other side—they didn't quite meet. But it has been healing, albeit slowly, and my PT said it will flatten out eventually. Maybe your tenderness in that area simply has to do with it being a little more of an "open" wound than the rest.
I am envious of your leg warmer! I miss my cats so much (the last of three died two years ago), but until my life settles down a little bit more, I will not be inviting any other felines to live with me. Maybe your leg warmer can help with Purr Cures.
@gr82cu2 that sure does look painful to me like the inside of the scar, yikes It made me take a good look at my knee 1 and knee 2 and believe it or not knee no 2 scar looks better than knee 1. It will get better Janet sorry knee no 2 has been so difficult
@PrincessTia On my first knee I had an area where the skin was higher on one side of the incision than the other but it seems to be all flat and normal now. I thought I was going to be left with a weird ridge in it. Sorry you feel like you can't have a kitty right now. We've had as many as 5 at one time. We finally got down to 2. This one is Mini and we also had Tucker and they were best friends. Tucker died in August of cancer. I really thought Mini would be so depressed at losing his little buddy but in fact, he's been the opposite. He's never been an only child before. I guess he likes it. He is a very large cat. In that picture, I don't know if you can tell but his paws are um near my girly parts and he stretches out all the way to my feet and I'm 5'8" tall! He's gotten to be quite the lap cat lately which he never did before. He was there this afternoon until I finally rousted him because I was trapped and getting hot from him. He came back later and I put my hand up to signal it was not ok and he had a little hissy fit with me, LOL!! Spoiled brat! He's the sweetest cat we've ever had. All you have to do is say his name and he purrs and purrs. He even frequently purrs in his sleep I can't imagine being catless
@gr82cu2 This is the first time I've had no cats in about 40 years. But it's worked out all right; I had to drive back and forth to my mom's while she was declining in health, and then I stayed at her house for several months after she died. And now, this surgery. It would've all been much harder if I had had to take care of cats still. But, oh yes, I do miss them!
The spot where my incision is higher on one side is exactly where I have a scar from having stitches when I was eight years old! I suspect the skin was just thicker there. I've been telling people that it's a dip-slip normal fault. (I'm a former geologist.)
@PrincessTia No, he was horribly misnamed! He weighs in at about 23#. Our son found him when driving along a country road. Poor baby was hunkered down in the middle of the road on a cold, rainy November day. I had always wanted an orange tabby but at the time we had 4 cats already. Zack brought him home and quarantined him from the other cats. I wasn't even going to go look at him because I'm such a sucker for cats but eventually I couldn't stand it anymore and went to see. He had told me it was a calico but there he was, an orange tabby! He was very tiny, malnourished and filthy. We thought he was female. Zack wanted to name "her" Minime from the Austin Powers movies. When we realized she was a he, he was already Mini so we just stuck with it. He's a little over 11 years old now.
You'll have kitties again once you get in a position to be able to care for them. Cat people are forever!
@gr82cu2, Janet sorry to hear that you had such a bad night. Are you out of the Oxycodone? The reason I ask is that maybe you need that in combination with the OxyContin at night. That's what my OS gave me for my first knee and the combination really controlled the pain. Your incision looks pretty bad, but with the a cabbing it looks like it s healing. It was probably so swollen that it caused it to open a little and now it's healing. Your skin is very, very dry. Have you been putting any cream on it. When my incision was healed I started putting vitamin E oil on the incision and also my leg as it was so dry. Not quite as bad as yours, but still bad. Anyway in the morning I would out on the oil and by the time I went to PT an hour or so later and I had to roll up my pant leg so Christine could see my incision, it was like I had the crud. All this flaky skin would be all over in the inside of my pant leg. Then I started using Dove Cream Oil, Intense Body Lotion and with in a day or so the crud was gone. It worked better than the vitamin oil.....although I didn't put it directly on my in incision but all around it and on the rest of my leg. Now I use it on the incision since it's completely healed.
@Yorkimom Hi Anne. Yes, I have Percocet (oxycodone with Tylenol 7.5/325) along with the Oxycontin. I take the oxycontin one 10mg every 8 hours and the Percocet one or two every 6 hours. I don't know what happened last night. It was just miserable and you know I usually sleep pretty well. I had been taking just one Percocet instead of two though. Through the day today instead of 2 Percocet I've been taking one Percocet and one Ultracet (Tramadol w/Tylenol in it) and that has calmed things down but we'll see how tonight goes. I wish the 2 meds were on the same schedule instead of being offset by 2 hours. It makes it harder to keep up with them in the night. I'll run out of Oxycontin on Friday anyway and I seriously doubt they will give me anymore of that.
My ugly dry leg........I've been putting lotion or Palmer's Coco Butter on it. That was right after I showered this morning and before applying lotion. I just wanted to see if anyone else experienced such drastic dry skin and peeling.
I was looking back through pictures and that place on my knee was not like that in the first few days so you're probably right. The swelling probably spread the incision open some. My incision was glued but in the very early pictures it looks like there wasn't any glue over that place. I have no idea what would have happened to it. Maybe it stuck to the incision covering or something? I just had like a sterile abdominal pad held in place by the compression hose, over the incision.
I haven't tried the Dove Cream Oil. I really like the Dove products and love, love, love their creamy body wash and use it and it only when showering. Soap does unkind things to my skin but that stuff is great! They have a new winter formula out now that I'm really liking. I'm a fan of their shampoo and conditioner as well and it's all reasonably priced.
@gr82cu2 I had lots of peeling after my surgery - not as bad as your leg it seems, and moreso on my feet but some on my legs too. My PT told me she sees it a lot. She attributed it to swelling, dryness in hospital that starts it all, and also my TED hose. For me, once I finally stopped peeling, my feet are smoother than they've ever been. Kind of like a giant spa peel, LOL.
Hope last night was better. I'm sure that getting behind your meds in the day, impacted you at night. Remember if you need more after Friday when you run out to ask. The worst they can say is no, but hopefully if that pain support is successful they will allow you to keep up with it for a bit longer.
@gr82cu2 you're are obviously making progress now even though more slowly than you would have liked but you did have a big set back with the anaemia and swelling so it must be good to be getting back on track. The pain issues are weird, I think, it's very hard to know if mine is getting better or staying at the same level. I seem to get very restless and in more pain in early evening but then sleep pretty well. Hope you have some much more comfortable days to come. I'm finding this site to be a boon with so much encouragement and great information.
@ljrfrm Yay for giant spa peels! What a nice side effect, huh? My feet are a hot mess currently. I take Humira injections for my arthritis & psoriasis and had to stop them a month before my surgery and couldn't resume till this week so my psoriasis on the soles of my feet is in hyper drive right now. After a couple of injections though they should get better. Last night was wayyyyy better! I slept well and had nothing more than the usual morning pain and stiffness when I woke up. I guess cutting back on my meds a little wasn't such a great idea and the pain got ahead of me. Live and learn
@SuperSnapper Yeah the pain is perplexing. I think the day to day gains are so small sometimes it's hard to measure but also so many things can affect it and send it spiraling out of control and makes it hard to get it back down to a manageable level at times. I'm finding the weather is a big problem for me. It always has been but seems magnified with these new knees. I suppose because of the chronic inflammation going on from the TKR's and then weather changes thrown in on top of that is not a good thing. Hopefully once healing is complete that will settle down. I just cannot wait for the day when I'm walking around pain free and not even thinking about my knees. It's been so long I can't remember what it was like. I don't know what I would have done without the forum either. This recovery would have been a lot scarier and lonelier for sure.
I have psoriasis too. It has gotbbad sometimes to once a.mother pulled her child away. Anyway mine has actually improved I have large red patches but almost no.scaling
@Legin I worked with a guy who had really bad plaque psoriasis. I felt so bad for him. His skin would crack and bleed. I have pustular psoriasis on the soles of my feet and palms of my hands. I've battled with it for about 20 years now. There aren't very many successful treatments for my kind because it is more rare than plaque. The Humira does a good job keeping my hands cleared up and helps my feet but not as much as I wish it would. I do have to really baby my feet so they don't crack.
I just got back from PT with Michelle I did better today than I have and managed to at least pedal backwards on the bike for a few minutes. My right knee measured 109 today and lefty was 125!!! Whoohoo!!! I asked her to measure the left too because I have felt like it is bending better now. It's still a little bit stiff and sore but not bad at all. The swelling is much more isolated in it now. When I bend it I can feel the swelling in the hollow part of the joint that opens up and if I push on the swelling it pokes out the opposite side, LOL. Hopefully soon it will be all gone forever. I'm feeling better today, taking meds by the clock.
@gr82cu2 unfortunately mine cracks etc last year they counted 56 open wounds and i sweat a lot why do you think i dance a lot its the ow ow ow dance. Cld be worse i cld be an ogre RRRRRROAR
@gr82cu2 your cat is awesome, definitely not a mini lol. Sorry you have to deal with the skin issues along with everything else you have been through. Week 4 hit me hard. I was not happy with my knee, boredom, etc. As you know from your first knee it does get better with time. Patience has been the hardest thing for me in my recovery.
@Legin Ouch! I'm so sorry You would think with millions (billions?) of people in the world who have psoriasis they could find a cure, wouldn't you?
@Minnie's knees Thank you, he is totally awesome! I am trying to hang onto the last thread of patience I have, believe me. Feeling better today has made a big difference in how I feel about all this emotionally. I still can't say I'm happy I went ahead with #2 but I will eventually.
@kneeper Thanks! I was very pleased with lefty. I need to look back at my notes but I think righty is right about where lefty was at the same time. I just wish the pain would calm down on it's own without being drugged. I'm sick of pills!!!!!
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) I've been using Shea butter on my leg in the dry areas, and it has helped. I also have one (tiny) area that has a scab, where one side of the skin is healing higher than the other side—they didn't quite meet. But it has been healing, albeit slowly, and my PT said it will flatten out eventually. Maybe your tenderness in that area simply has to do with it being a little more of an "open" wound than the rest.
I can't imagine being catless 
. I'm finding this site to be a boon with so much encouragement and great information.
You would think with millions (billions?) of people in the world who have psoriasis they could find a cure, wouldn't you? 
