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Revision TKR if at first you don't succeed....<

Maybe this is as good as it's going to get, but maybe it's not. It is only 4 months into a year-long recovery. There's still plenty of time for improvement.
My latest TKR is almost 11 months old and I've just seen some improvement this week.
 
puppywalker said:
I've developed my own form of knee bends - when I wake up in the morning while lying on my side in bed, I bend the operated knee back as far as I can and then use the other foot to just push it a little further and hold for a count of 5. Absolutely no pain or discomfort and it loosens up the knee for getting out of bed.
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I used to do something similar as far as doing some heel slides before I got up in the morning to loosen up.
My PT told me something interesting about using your other leg to hold the tkr leg. she said to use the other foot to hold it in place so you can let the muscles relax and not strain.
 
I guess that's why it doesn't hurt doing it that way. I wonder why the PTs insist on trying heel slides lying down when there's a much more comfortable way of doing them? The old "no pain, no gain" theory perhaps? My PT only wanted me to use my good leg as something for the TKR knee to push against. Boy, did that hurt!
 
Don't give up hope! With my 1st TKR it was a solid 10 months before I could say I hadn't made a mistake with the TKR. And I was still improving at 12 months. I have issues with that 1st knee but they are soft tissue related and not with the knee function. And bag those heel slides. I could NEVER do a heel slide laying on the bed. I tried to push the recovery with knee #1 and failed miserably. With knée #2 I've just let it go and refuse to worry about anything and it has made a world of difference. And I hand picked my PTs so they are aligned with my approach. And I don't do anything I don't want to do - hence the no heel slides, clam shells, or straight leg raises early in recovery. I learned my lessons!
 
puppywalker said:
I wonder why the PTs insist on trying heel slides lying down when there's a much more comfortable way of doing them?
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Because they're used to measuring ROM that way and they can become number-obsessed.

Function is far more important than numbers, anyway.
 
Has anyone found that the pain changes from place to place during recovery? Although I've had a lot of muscle and tendon soreness over the last few months the actual knee joint itself has felt OK. But now the muscles have settled down and it's the area round the front of my kneecap which is very tender to the touch and when I'm walking.I seem to have a hard round flat sort of lump about 3 inches below my kneecap which wasn't there before. I'm wondering if this is just showing up now because a lot of the swelling has gone down? There's also a lot of clunking and clicking which has never been there before. I'm still having trouble walking any sort of distance, although the back pain is not as sever as it was a few weeks ago. This seems to be going on for ever - I never thought that after 4 months I wouldn't be able to walk any further than I could before surgery.
 
I remember mine clunking a lot when the swelling went down. I think it's still there occasionally but I don't notice it anymore. At about your stage I was at GP convinced I'd never walk again and that the surgeon must have made a mistake in theatre. She laughed, said she wished she had a £ for every time she heard that! It just takes it's own time and patience is difficult.
 
@puppywalker , I have noticed too that the recovery pain does move around too and I'm only a week or so behind you. For example, my IT band was giving me fits a bit earlier on. Now it rarely flares up but I do have some swelling and slight pain on the lower medial side of my kneecap. Overall, it's improving though -- just not as fast as we might wish!

Roxie
 
thanks guys. It's so hard sometimes not to get discouraged and just give up. I know 4 months is still considered comparatively early in recovery, but even a few pain-free steps would be wonderful. I'm usually a very go-and-get-'em type of person, but I have a lot of trouble dealing with the down days just now-there seem to be so many of them.
 
puppywalker said:
I seem to have a hard round flat sort of lump about 3 inches below my kneecap which wasn't there before
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Do you mean like this? It's an infrapatellar bursa and has probably be cause by doing too much stuff like squats, lunges, steps and etc.

[Bonesmart.org] if at first you don't succeed....<


puppywalker said:
There's also a lot of clunking and clicking which has never been there before
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That will go away with time. It's annoying but it will go away. Could last about 6-8 months.
 
that's just about the right place, Josephine - about 3 inches below the centre of my kneecap and just very slightly right of the scar. I think perhaps you've hit the nail on the head as there is a small amount of "give" when I press hard on the swelling, as though it were fluid filled. I've never done squats or lunges because I read on here that they were not good for the new knee. I was doing a small number of "step" reps each day - 2x10 reps at most. The last couple of weeks I haven't really done any exercises other than normal household stuff as I wondered whether they were causing the pain which was stopping me from walking more than a very few minutes. Although I can't honestly say there seems to be much difference one way or the other. The "clunk, click every trip" was odd as I thought that this was something that got better as the quads improved, not the other way round. However, as long as it's normal that's fine and I shall ignore it! Thank you so much for the answer - where would we all be without your good sense anchoring us to the ground?!
 
I haven't posted for a while - I've been trying to just get on with things and be patient, but today I gave in and phoned the hospital where my surgery was done. When I told them about the persistent pain and the swelling below my kneecap they wanted me to go in and see them this afternoon! I can't go out today as I'm awaiting a delivery, but have to go to see the consultant first thing tomorrow morning. I'm an insulin dependent diabetic and my blood sugars have never really settled down after the surgery, despite being very well controlled before, and have been getting higher and higher. At first I put this down to healing after the surgery, but I'm beginning to wonder if there may be some kind of infection there now - could it really take this long to develop? The hospital seem to be taking it pretty seriously, anyway. I hope that it is just an infection which can be treated with antibiotics and I won't have to have more surgery. Has anyone else had any experience of this? I'm almost 5 months out from surgery?
 
At least the hospital is listening and you'll get to the bottom of it or your mind set at ease. Which hospital is it?
 
That's where I was and I had the same , when I phoned up with a question , they said come in tomorrow. Good luck
 
thanks. I've felt for quite a while that something wasn't just right, but everyone said it could take up to a year so I just tried to be patient and put up with it, but it's getting too bad for that any longer.
 
I didn't go Becky - they were going to fit me in somewhere in today's clinic but I got a call to say that the OS who performed the surgery wants to see me himself and could I go in next Wed. If anything blows up before then I've to phone the ward direct.
 
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