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HerbM: Here We Go Again, Bilateral TKRs for late October/early November

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Herb, I think I'm guilty of misleading you. The toilet riser made it possible to use the thing with not too much pain. The mattress on the first bed I used was just under 2 feet off the ground, my chair that I spent much of the day in was elevated using books, and I could get into and out of both without help. I just had to take it steady.

For instance, for the first while I came downstairs just once a day, back up to bed again just once -- and it took a while to make it, too. But I did, without help.

I never had any bother reaching the lavatory when I needed it. I doubt you will either.
 
The only thing my husband had to do for me was to help me lift my leg onto the bed for the first few days after I came home - and cook my meals. I could get out of bed with no help and get up off the toilet with no help. Granted, I only one knee done, but people who have bilaterals learn to manage while they are in hospital or rehab.

You won't be helpless in bed for a month, although you will have to spend a lot of time resting.

It pays to allow yourself plenty of time when you need bathroom breaks. Plan to start moving well before you get desperate.

You may find that the surgery and the pain medications make your head quite fuzzy for a month or so. It won't be at all easy to concentrate on working.
 
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@HerbM ,
Why did you think that what I wrote was funny? It was said in all seriousness, to try and help you - and it all came from personal experience.

I may have only had one knee replaced, but it was done twice, once in 2000 and once in 2011.

I also have a background as a nurse, although I do not give nursing advice here.

Once you've been through it, perhaps you'll understand better.
 
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After my BTKR, I never had trouble getting in and out of a bed. They taught me how to do it at the rehab, and in the event that you do not go to a rehab floor/center, they will show you how to do it at the hospital before you are sent home.

I used one "throne" and came home with a walker---that served me fine for several weeks, and then I went tto crutches and then briefly to a cane.

If you have normal upper-body strength, getting out of a bed, a chair with arms, or the toilet riser will be no problem.
 
Sounds like I will be alright then (thx). I have very good upper body strength but it could be better due to my weight (225.)

I am working on bringing these more in line. (Strength up and weight down.)

I have 7 weeks and ideally I will go into surgery at less than 200, but at least a lot closer to it.
 
Y'know, I did not have bilateral, but still feel qualified to suggest that you'll be just fine and so will your wife. My weight fluctuates between 195 and 205. I am 60 and have fairly poor upper body strength and truly lousy grip strength, as OA has trashed my hands as well as my knees. I didn't do any training prior to either knee surgery, unless you call 3and half weeks of PT for my broken ankle training. I didn't have any state of the art stuff from either of my small town general orthopedic practice DO surgeons. I had both surgeries at Man's Smallest Hospital. How small, you ask? So small that there is no Cardiology Department, that's how small. MSH is 40 miles away from the closest real hospital (you know, one with a level 1 trauma center and cardiologists), and 90 miles two other directions from Big Hospitals That Everyone Has Heard Of.

Both times I walked out of the hospital the same day I walked in, had no problems whatsoever with getting around (walker for a few days even at home, then a cane, currently I'm only using the cane when I go out to tend the chickens) and my use of narcotics has been minimal, with none since Friday. I sleep in a low bed, don't own a recliner, and the DH started back to work on Thursday with my surgery this time having occurred on Tuesday. Went up and down the steps at church on Sunday--there's four, I think.

I rest and ice a lot, and I take my Tylenol faithfully. I get up, go to the john, work the crappy little pedal contraption, potter around the house a bit, fix a snack, back to resting.. Its pretty simple, boring, and effective. If/when I have pain I ice and elevate. In between icing and elevating I elevate and ice.
 
Sounds good. I am not LIKELY to have a lot of issues with getting up then.

I am losing weight but it's quite possible that 200 will not get here before the seven weeks are up. (Possible, but a big iffy -- though I am an expert as losing weight easily, doing a lot of exercise since my THR, and motivated.)

The frame I envisioned intrigued me and the parts came to less than $50 so I couldn't resist buying enough to make the first one. Require it or not (I had a lot of things that made life easier for my THR that weren't strictly required) it probably will give me a lot of assistance and already just the base (the rest is not yet assembled) has made using my over-bed table easier with my chair -- pretty sure that the table is a permanent fixture for my "work from home" computer job. I like it.

Whether I'll build another for the bedroom is left for a later decision (I have almost 7 weeks left.)

If nothing else, I can use it to burn off excess energy as a pull up bar (the design was mostly a modification of a pull up frame found on the Internet -- see above for picture/diagram of the original.)

One bathroom has the toilet riser, and since I returned the simple "assist rails" (as defective, one screw didn't work and it wasn't 100% safe), I'll likely order another, different type for that 2nd bathroom. The riser primarily for sitting, and, just in case, rails but no riser primarily for standing. Equidistant bathrooms from my main chair.

In the gym, my routine now includes deep slow dips and long slow pull-ups; worst case this will make my shoulders look better and probably keep them moving freely :)

I am lucky in that my grip strength has never suffered from the moderate arthritis in my hands -- when I grab something it usually STAYS GRABBED. (Seriously I invented an entire system for disarming knives which works even for works for people WITHOUT a lot of grip strength so I have to be certain to use just a couple of fingers when testing out new techniques.)

Tonight is water therapy (on my own) and restorative yoga -- last night's yoga proved the knees were largely the limiting factor but continue to give me more ROM in the hips (both actually) as my doc and main PT instructed me to work to add.

I am really stoked that my Meridian Stretching trainer/masseur is back in town and we'll get together Friday night -- he's being really great to see me as an extra appointment to help me stay on track.

Knees are ok today but the tendons ache after heavy use. Did I mention "less than 7 weeks"? (I am like a kid at Christmas again -- already :) :) :) )
 
You really are working hard preparing for your BTKR's Herb - a second surgery can be tough on the body generally, so this prep will help.
 
Would that we could plan for all contingencies. Sounds like you are going to be as well or better prepared than anyone, BUT I can promise with near certainty that SOMETHING will blindside you at some point during your recovery and you'll have to improvise--maybe the icemaker will go belly up, or Great Aunt Harriet will visit and make your life a living hell... and you just have to grin and roll with it if it does. Some challenges can't be anticipated, and our new knees are pretty capable even early on.

In my case, last knee Mr jeano decided to have a stroke while at work (an hours and a half's drive one way) barely 3 weeks after my surgery. Didn't see that one coming. (he was just fine but ended up needing me and a pal to go to him and bail him out of the hospital, which took nearly 12 hours longer than it should have, then the 3 of us had to go to the military base where he works to retrieve his car, then drive home in a convoy thru the deer-infested woods in the wee hours of the night, not that any of us see well in the dark.) A few weeks after that we had a horrendous freeze and I had to haul water from the house to the barn and dip out of the pond to get water for the chickens. I was icing, so to speak, but not elevating.

The point being, fairly soon the new knee became the least of my worries, and I found it was going to help me cope a lot sooner than I would've thought.

You will do fine. I know I'll enjoy your recovery posts. Stay well.
 
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Thanks @Poppet

In teaching and practicing knife fighting there is a common adage "Expect to get cut" that is just flat untrue but has an useful element embedded in it.

There is no need to "expect" injury or catastropy, it might becoming an unnecessary but self-fulfilling prophesy, and the expectation offers no advantages.

However, one must be PREPARED to KEEP FIGHTING if a criminal attacker injures us -- we can't go to the ER until we make the "bad man with the knife go away."

So we don't expect injury, we prepare as well as possible to totally avoid that, and we prepare to fight through on if an injury does occur.

It's similar in this endeavor, and my preparation requires that rejection of the idea that something MUST not work out well -- planning for the worst and expecting the best is a key and critical part of my preparation.

I don't have chickens and won't tolerate neurotic relatives -- even sitcoms based on those kinds of people are of no interest to me :)

If something does happen that others might perceive as a setback, part of *my* job is to figure out how to make it "just another event" that is part of the process.

It would be foolish to enter a motor-cross race and expect no bumps. :)
 
There are all the adages: 'To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail'; and the 6 P's:'Proper planning practically predicts perfect performance'; 'Proper planning prevents p*** poor performance', so you're on track there alright!

The only thing to look out for would be failure to recognise something like 'I am sitting in my recliner watching telly and doing naff all else. I've been here 4 hours' is valid and correct. Resting and not doing much are essential parts of TKR recovery, and doing more stretching or exercise than the minimum needed won't help.

Recovery sucks resources from the body and the brain. I had no trouble with daytime TV, it was at my level :)

You may well have taken note of this already, in which case I'm preaching to the choir -- sorry.
 
Not at all -- all suggestions welcome -- I use what is needed and keep the rest in mind.

As to "daytime TV" -- I like TV AND part of my prior planning (last time and again this time) was (will be) to stock up on 'extra' shows on the DVR to make sure there is something to do if all else fails.

Edit: I also loaded up my Android Pad with lots (and lots) of books for both pleasure and study, and made sure my laptop also had lots of movies and videos in case I was stuck at the hospital or in my bed.

One of the better things about my job is that it literally can be done from my recliner -- my laptop works just fine that way and the over-bed table (at the chair) ensure that my legs don't need to be 'trapped' by holding the PC as I would usually do.

So far, the decline in resources from the Hip replacement never happened to me (in any significant or noticeable way beyond normal tiredness) but "knees are harder, two knees are harder yet."

With the hip, the main thing was to AVOID sitting too long in ONE stretch -- sitting all day was fine, but it was pretty important to get up every hour or two and just move around, stretch out my hip.

(Otherwise, I would get a little bit of adhesion or stiffness right at the hip crease/wound otherwise. It wasn't painful but it was mildly annoying for the first 20 seconds when getting up, mostly because it seemed it MIGHT hurt if allowed to develop too much further.)
 
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Yes, certainly you will want to get up and move around periodically. Many tkrers don't remember that-- especially early-- it is ok to rest a lot.
 
October 21st is confirmed for my BTKR at St. David's (the same) hospital as my hip.

My doc is switching his hospitals/schedule around but has made arrangements for patients to have surgery at the same hospital as the previous surgery if they wish. His scheduler just called and confirmed my date.

:thumb:

On the subject of being thrown curves: Our self-defense work does indeed inform this quite a bit. We don't practice "counters to set attacks" or even "techniques that we EXPECT to work".

In everything we do we work towards open responses to any attack and continued resistance even when our techniques fail -- literally the method I invented is to "chain defenses" until one of them works.

Even if you only have a 50/50 chance of each ultimately succeeding, it only takes 7 in a chain to take the overall odds to 99%, presuming you can survive and keep the chain going, by the time you get to 10 in a chain, the odds are in your favor at 99.9% (i.e., 2 ^ 10 = 1024 -- the bad guy has less than 1 chance in a thousand.)

How does this relate to other activities and to surgery? You can't plan for every literal possibility but you can plan and practice to always be able to take a setback, a problem, an issue in stride as just the next thing in the chain to deal with.

Doing it this way, whatever you can survive makes you stronger and virtually guarantees your success.

Someone like @CanukTriMom , a triathlete and Iron Woman, might just say something like, "Keep putting one foot in front of the other, run another hundred meters, then do it again, until you reach the finish," but that is just MY take on it and her words would likely be different.


Keep fighting; God will tell you when you are dead. :yes!:​
 
@HerbM


No you are correct....one foot in front of the other......and keep going until you get there even if it seems like the pattern is sometimes one foot forward and two feet back.

You know you got this handled Herb.....I would forgo the additional draping no the morning of the operation:heehee:

Hey did I mention I am 12 days away from being bionic.......

Take care and keep tagging me in your posts as I really enjoy them!

Cheryl aka CanukTriMom:kayak::swim::biking::walking:
 
12 days -- Wow!!!! Color me jealous! (I told my wife, that I would go THIS TUESDAY if they called me. I'm ready but have to wait 6 1/2 more weeks.)

Tagged you are.

And just to keep you laughing I'll definitely plan to drape each knee. (and I did hate to waste all the effort that was put into sterile scrubbing my surgery area.)

I was even thinking about leaving notes on my both of knees which each read, "Cut other side" :)

I did mention my surgeon has a sense of humor.
 
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Hi Herb, @HerbM - I believe I may have provided see articles on your hip recovery thread - however, I get the privilege of being able to provide it to you again on the knee forum, lol.. :)

The following is a link to an article which provides the current science regarding the healing beneath and around the implant and approximate timeframes for the healing phases and processes and the relevant nutritional information for each phase. This is what I was referring to regarding the control our body has over the healing process - we can help it and you are certainly doing everything you can both mentally and physically. However, in the end we can't hurry the healing process timeframe - the body has a mind of its own :)

Healing Phases & Nutrition

This second link is to other nutritional articles which you may find interesting, including one relating to bone health.

Nutritional advice for pre op and recovery

This third link refers to my ongoing research.. I have just added four new articles on the following thread in my library :)

nutrional-snippets
 
Thanks @Poppet -- I read a few of them (and had read some before) and will continue to look through them for applicable tips in the weeks to come.

I haven't previously mentioned it (mostly because I wasn't extremely careful about follow it) but prior to my hip surgery, I went onto a loose "mega-vitamin" regimen similar to that recommended by Dr. Atkins decades ago, grams of C, 100mg B-complex, super multi (mostly for minerals and trace) -- all several times per day.

I left out E as it was on the "do not take list" and some other stuff that in the past would have been in my mega-V regimen but this is the basis of it anyway.

Don't know how much this helped me but again, doing every reasonable thing to prepare and recover seemed prudent.
 
My very simple weight routine to prep for the BTKR:
  • Dips at net 70 lbs x 10 x 2 sets x 2
  • Pull-ups at net 70 lbs x 10 x 2 sets x 2 (not making 10 on second set always)
  • Leg curls at 65 lbs x 10 x 2 sets x 2
  • Leg extensions at 80 lbs x 10 x 2 sets x 2
It's really simple, and only takes me about 15 minutes so it's pretty easy to do it almost every day.

Near to surgery, I will probably switch over to more weight with fewer reps to work mainly on strength with whatever muscle is present. (This workout is closer to stimulating growth.)

The arm work is of course to help prep my arms, shoulders, lets, etc for moving me around without full use of the knees.

The leg work is just to get a little more advantage with quads and femoral biceps -- I am going to ask the surgeon if my leg muscles will interfere with the surgery and perhaps switch to just stretches if he says it will (on another board, I heard of surgeons saying words to the effect, "Really tough working on your with those muscles, but you recovered your mobility quickly for the same reason.")
 
Oh I remember the Atkins diet era Herb, @HerbM - drove my family crazy with it, lol..... I am certainly not adverse to supplements, certainly take certain supplements, sadly due to my professional registration I cannot recommend or suggest any on the forum.

However, over the years I concentrate more and more on a balanced fresh nutrient dense diet. No processed foods. I grow my own vegetables, fruits, nuts. We don't buy takeaway. I love to cook and I love to cook my own homegrown food etc.. To me there is nothing more exciting than watching the fishing trawler come in and going down an hour later when they have have time to fillet the fish - buy fresh, head home, go to my veggie garden and pick whatever is ripe and ready for the meal... It is nirvana to me :)
 
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