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TKR Irish471's Recovery Thread

Two days into the work week and my knee is unhappy again. :bored: Sigh! I have been having pain around the kneecap and it’s pretty disconcerting because it’s in the same area where my bone spur was prior to surgery. I am going to get back to icing 3 times/day and scheduling the tylenol so that I am taking 1,000 mg every 4 hours to see if that will help. I haven’t been using the cane for the past week. My husband thinks I should use it still, at least half the time.

I am trying to take it in stride. It could be so much worse and I am grateful it’s not. I am just puzzled because I am not doing a lot physically at work. I make short walks a couple times/day to the copier or breakroom, etc. The rest of the time, my knee is elevated while I sit at my desk. When I get home, I am elevating, except when I have PT (M, W, F). I charged up my fitbit and will wear it tomorrow to see how much walking I am actually doing. Fingers crossed that more regular scheduled icing and tylenol help :praying:
 
Sorry to hear the knee is giving you grief so early into the work week. I hope tomorrow is better.
 
@Rockgirl4 , thank you! I was up at 2:00 am fumbling for an oxycodone. :bawl:

When I wake up, the knee is happy. No swelling or very minimal as seen in the photo. I will take a photo when I get home from work for a comparison.

I am starting to wonder if maybe weaning myself from the cane was too much right now. Maybe it’s loading the joint too much. I plan to ask lots of questions at PT today.
 

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Irish471 said:
I am going to get back to icing 3 times/day and scheduling the tylenol so that I am taking 1,000 mg every 4 hours to see if that will help.
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Make sure you only take 4 doses of Tylenol in each 24 hours, wont you? Otherwise you'll be exceeding the safe daily limit of 4,000 mg.

Irish471 said:
Two days into the work week and my knee is unhappy again
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Irish471 said:
I haven’t been using the cane for the past week. My husband thinks I should use it still, at least half the time.
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You're back at work earlier than we recommend. Your knee is reacting normally and telling you it's feeling the strain.
Yes, go back to using the cane. your poor knee needs some help.

Irish471 said:
When I get home, I am elevating, except when I have PT (M, W, F)
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Irish471 said:
I am starting to wonder if maybe weaning myself from the cane was too much right now. Maybe it’s loading the joint too much. I plan to ask lots of questions at PT today.
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Back at work and still going to PT 3 times a week is too much for your knee. Work and daily living are enough exercise for your knee. You don't need PT as well, especially on work days. I suggest you cut out the PT, or at least cut it back severely, to one day a week, and not on a work day.
 
Thank you @Celle ! No worries on the tylenol. I will definitely stick to the 4,000mg/day limit. The PT pattern of M, W, and F has been disrupted. I have only gone 3 times in the past 2.5 weeks due to graduations and the holiday. It really does make my knee feel better. Otherwise, I would definitely cut back. My fitbit showed I only did about 3,000 steps today, so I don’t think I am overdoing it while at work.

My PT believes that it’s nerve pain that I am feeling in the knee. I think he’s right. Sometimes I feel an intermittent pain like something is firing on and off. And I feel the pain when my knee is in certain positions. In other words, it’s not a constant pain. It’s just strange how the pain is showing up in all the old familiar places.

Three months of sleeping on my back, walking with a cane and then without the cane have created the perfect storm and my back is out of whack. We worked on my back the entire time during today’s PT session. I have some new stretches and he wants me to ice my back, too.
 
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That all sounds much more reassuring. :thumb:
 
When you sleep on your back are your legs elevated? That’s the only way I can do it.
 
@Jockette , yes, legs are always elevated when I sleep on my back. We’re taking a trip the first week of July to visit family and I bought the inflatable lounge doctor pillow :heehee: I can’t imagine life without it!

@Benay , thank you!

@Celle , today was so much better!!! Whatever the PT did yesterday really worked. No nerve pain today. I took a Lyrica pill at bed time last night. That might have helped, too. I also did lots of stretching when I got up before leaving for work. Hoping I have found the magic formula to more pain free days :yahoo: Three people commented about how well I was walking, too. Hardly any limping. Woohoo!
 
@Irish471

There is a 'super highway' from your head to your toes and it does not take much to interrupt the flow of traffic on the highway.

You must remember that everything leading up to your surgery has put your body through transitions... For instance if one of our knees starts to hurt the body will without you knowing try to fix itself... Hence we might end up with a different 'gait' to what we used to have.

Then that new approach can throw your back out, the body again tried to fix itself and we are caught in a viscous cycle.

We then get to a point when nothing seems to help that is the time we look at things like PT, Chiro or surgery.

Once we have something so intense as a TKR your body goes into overdrive trying to fix this new mess.... This perhaps requires new shoes, a totally different approach to the way we did things before. It's like learing to walk all over again.

This all makes sense in my head, but putting it into words on here.. Oh dear :) :-) (:
 
@Atlas_aus , it makes perfect sense! Whenever people ask how recovery is or how I am doing, I always tell them it's like learning to walk all over again. It truly is!
 
[Bonesmart.org] Irish471's Recovery Thread
I woke up but not with the usual intense knee pain. Possibly a first. 2 tylenols later - I don't feel the need for Tramadol - and a fresh ice pack I'm comfortable. Here's another picture paints a 1000 words which I'm sure all of us can relate to. Today I'm five weeks out @Irish471 hope you're doing well and you too @Atlas_aus
 
12 weeks today!!! I think I turned a corner this weekend :loveshwr: I went with my daughter to visit her future junior college campus and I got this wonderful feeling while walking. My knee actually felt (dare I say) normal and I was walking with no detectable limp. That’s the best way I can describe it. It felt great!

The PT wrote a new status report to send to the surgeon today. Six weeks ago, I was barely able to get to 96 degrees on my own. Today, my number was 113. My extension was at +5. We worked on descending stairs. Still not ready for it, but ascending is going very well! I am thinking I will be sticking with PT for a couple more weeks, then will start flying solo with it.

For everyone newly out of surgery, have faith! This really does get better. I looked back through my thread and read how I thought I had made a huge mistake just a week or two after surgery. I wrote how I wished I were 3 months post op. Well, I am there now, and my thinking has gone in the opposite direction. I now think it was one of the best decisions. Now I can’t wait to be 6 months along :heehee:
 
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Twelve weeks is often the turning point for some. It was the amount of time my OS said I’d need before returning to work and that was pretty much what I did. I can tell you, I was gaining ROM 12-18 months post op just with daily activities and swimming. So happy you’ve turned the corner!
 
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