I can't begin to express how thankful I am for Bonesmart.
I had medial meniscus repair when I was 15 years old in 1978 and was told that one day I'll need a knee replacement but that I should wait as long as I possibly could before getting it done. Back then the repair was done by an open arthrotomy, lay aside the knee cap and scrape the cartilage off the bone and sew it back up. Thirteen stitches and a scar about 7 inches long in what is now done arthroscopic - what maybe three stitches?
Fast forward 35+ years - rainy weather would make me limp for days, I slept with my heel hanging off the bed because I didn't have the extension anymore, I was obviously knock-kneed on one leg, I was taking more falls as I used to swing my leg out and around to walk.
I slipped and fell in June of this year and besides spraining my ankle and knee, I also tore more cartilage, what little I did have left. I went directly from my GP to an Orthopaedic surgeon who decided that there wasn't enough to salvage so was scheduled for a TKR, I found Bonesmart and began to educate myself about the process - surgery and recovery.
Immediately after surgery I began to fall off the 'clinical pathway'. I didn't have as much ROM post-op as they hoped and despite pushing me to work harder, my quads didn't just wake up and start working. I knew what most people were doing, I knew it wasn't happening for me. I considered the valgus state of my knee and looked it up in the Bonesmart library and it wasn't until a week after surgery that I got a physio to listen, look at pictures and realize that the quad was actually atrophied for a very long time - possibly decades. That no amount of pushing and pleading and concentrating would make it work. I needed physio on the knee and quad both.
If I had gone through an Osteopath on my way to the surgeon, he/she might have picked up on that fact.
Because of Bonesmart, I was educated and confident enough to question my treatment. I wasn't going to be bullied into pushing myself into an injury because of the scary MUA being threatened. I knew/know if it happens it's not because I haven't done my physio, but because it's a physiological effect.
Fortunately the consulting physician at my new outpatient rehab seems to follow the BS mantra. He told me exercise and then elevate and ice. Take it slow, don't overwork it, and not to worry, it will come when it comes. Now that I'm on the right clinical pathway - a TKR with longstanding quad complications - no one feels I'm failing and that is great for my psychological wellbeing.