TKR Is it all really worth it? One Year update.

[Lagrange]

I am only going to address the question asked in the thread title. Heck yes it is worth it.
My first knee was done Dec.5. I am recovering from the second at the moment. The other day I looked at the bottom of my right foot without really thinking about what I was doing, just a natural motion. All of a sudden I realized what I was doing and marveled. It was the first time I could look at the bottom of that foot in years!

 

[referee54]

and officiate interscholastic wrestling.

I sat in the stands this weekend watching wrestling matches, looking at officials and wondering "will I ever be able to do that again?"

Welcome to the forum from one official to another!1 I understand how you feel---in fact, I completely understand how you feel!!! I reffed college basketball for 17 years and I burned my knees out. (That and genetics had a great deal to do with it...) In 2007, I found out that I was scheduled to work the state baseball finals---and my knees were killing me. I made it through that year on cortisone shots and worked the finals---my picture in my Avatar is from that game. I have also worked college football and HS football, too.

I have worked two more state finals since then---2009 and 20011. I am hopeful that I can get back there this year---in my 40th year as a baseball---so I am confident that you will be able o get back on the mat and do what yo love to do so much.

In short, yes, it is very, very much worth it!

Please listen to the excellent advice that yo have been given---recovery can take quite a bit longer that we would like it to, and trying to rush things merely slows things down. I had a BTKR in November of 200, and I still had a very, very slight limp when I first called my first baseball game of the season in 2008! It took me five months to feel pretty good, and it took eight months to feel "really close to normal!"

Please be patient---I know that it is difficult, but, considering what has been done surgically to your knees, i will take some time to allow the knees to get back to their old routine.

I will tell you this, though---when you are fully recovered, you will be amazed at how great you feel!

 

[Ms.fixit]

So sorry to be late with this..I didn't get my usual email notification!
I weaned off my meds and I was on a ton! If you are on 2-3 Vicodin a day, just start cutting down to two for a few days then one for a few days, then a half, then done. You may still be a bit sweaty and down for a day or two but it will pass. I was on Oxycontin, Dilaudid, Oxycodone and Percoset at one time or another and I did fine doing iut like this. Hope that helps!

 

[iceguy]

Here's a question for some of you "Old Timers". You know,you folks that have had this knee surgery several years ago.
Last night I had to get down on the floor to adjust some wires on the DVD player (you know how much TV we watch while recovering) and in trying to get back up from sitting on the floor, I got on my knees. Boy did that feel weird! Is there a point where you can be kneeling and not have it feel so strange?

 

[Ms.fixit]

Okay, now you're just showing off!

 

[iceguy]

Ms.Fixit,
Showing off not intended! You know how sometimes you just start doing something that you've always done and once you've started it you remember that you had major surgery recently. Ut-oh! I'm not supposed to do that. Sometimes it hurts really bad and sometime, not so bad. This was one of those times, hurt a little but felt really weird!

 

[Ms.fixit]

Oh how well I can relate. It's the creepy factor that gets me, more than any awful pain. I knelt on the bed one afternoon.. because I forgot, too. I got the skeevy feeling, plus one of those noises that tells you that you are the proud new owner of a cyborg joint, composed of man-made materials. It caused me to try to leap out of my own body to get away from it, like a pet who has been fitted by the Vet with an elizabethan protection collar.

 

[Recycled]

OK Iceguy, "oldtimer here" as you put it. Jeez, talk about boring......it seems all I ever do it harp on the "it takes time" scenario. But, truth is......because I am one of the oldtimers.....I can see the whole picture. So, because you CAN'T yet ........just believe it. It will come. You talk about all the things you are used to doing......Really.....were you doing them lately before your surgery? Probably not very much. But you will again. I know. I do them all. Fishing, boating, scuba diving, ride bikes, motorcycles, flying, doing construction, climbing ladders, roofing houses, .......etc. pretty much anything I choose to do. You will too. Will you be thinking that you must be different and not healing correctly or fast enough.....Absolutely. You will question it every day. You will research all forms of post surgery complications, thinking you are experiencing them. Eventually you'll actuall get tired of that and just resign yourself to accepting things..........And without even realizing it, time will go by (rather quickly) and you'll dwell on the knees less and less.......and then suddenly, it'll hit you that they are fine and you're back to doing routine things. (how did that happen?)
What........you don't buy it? Think I'm hyping it up for encouragement? Just read my past threads and posts. My whinning makes your doubts look like a walk in the park. So, back to my byline........"Give it time". I know it's tough......one day at a time seems to take forever. But do me a favor.......when you get there, come back and encourage others here.

Oh, and BTW......even now when I get up off the floor, I still straight leg it to avoid kneeling.......just can't get my mind around the weird feeling. Go figure.

 

[referee54]

Boy did that feel weird! Is there a point where you can be kneeling and not have it feel so strange?

Honestly, I had my BTKR over five years ago, and kneeling still feels really weird---I try to avoid it. It does nothing, as I understand it, to harm my knees, but I just do not like the way that it feels.

 

[RICBAK1]

I am not really an old timer tkr, grandkids though call me a rust bucket, but this week end i was back to normal son in law running marathon daughter in florida me kneeling at side of car and under it in freezing cold and wife saying watch your knees.They work but feel odd 1 because of metal work other because needs metal work,but hey i can manage last year this was not possible.

 

[iceguy]

Recycled,
Thanks for your insight. Yes, last fall, I was climbing ladders, framing and roofing @ Habitat for Humanity, riding a bike and crewing on a racing sailboat. Although painful sometimes, I did it. Unlike many people here, I wasn't that bad off. Doctors told me that I was going to need both knees "rebuilt" and that the longer I waited the worse it would be. I guess that's why I'm so impatient with the healing process.

 

[zjrog]

Over 2 years now... Nope still feels weird. Although I can kneel on concrete a bit at a time now. Time and patience... But I don't think I even tried to kneel as early as you. Its rather sad that nobody prepares you for the knee to be in charge. But thats the schedule you are on and one you aren't able to mess too much with.

And in answer to your main question, it is indeed worth it.

 

[jeep02]

Hello Iceguy from ky. had btkr oct 29 2012. knees still click and pop. they feel funny and dont want them against anything much but i am able to work full time 12hr swingshifts in the factory. climbing stairs and carrying and stacking 50lb bags. no problem walking or working . everyone says it gets better with time . look forward to the day I can run again too. haven't run in 15 years.

 

[iceguy]

Well, here I am @ 12 & 16 weeks out and things have made a quantum leap! It seems that we go along working at getting better and everything seems like it is the same as it was yesterday. Then, all of a sudden, you realize that things have changed. I had one of those days last week. I have been going to the gym 3 days a week and really working on getting my legs stronger. One day last week I woke up and felt really good. I started down stairs for breakfast and realized that my normal hesitation about going down stairs was gone. I just bounded down like I used to do. No pain! Throughout the day I felt really good and went about my normal routine and didn't have the usual pain and stiffness that I have been experiencing.

Don't get me wrong....I'm not there yet but I feel that I am about 85-90% where I would like to be with recovery. I still have a lot of stiffness if I stand in the same spot for any period of time and I still have a ways to go with getting my legs back to acceptable strength. But at least I am seeing some recognizable advances.

Hoo Rah!

 

[inspojo]

good for you Iceguy! I'm new here. joined tonight. I'm for tkr 21st May and very very glad I found this forum. Keep on the good work!

 

[1ELISEA]

Hi inspojo
I have added you to the list of May Marvels.
HERE

If you would like, why not start your own thread on the pre-op side and members will be along to say "hi".
Here are the instructions to start a thread.

A warm welcome to the BoneSmart forum!

 

[zjrog]

Isn't that great? Time and patience, is all it takes.

 

[Recycled]

I'm not there yet but I feel that I am about 85-90% where I would like to be with recovery. I still have a lot of stiffness if I stand in the same spot for any period of time and I still have a ways to go with getting my legs back to acceptable strength. But at least I am seeing some recognizable advances.

Hoo Rah!

Way to go Iceguy........now you can stick around and "pay it forward". The benefits to others can't be measured. Keep it up .

 

[iceguy]

A new update on my recovery. Coming up on 5 & 4 months.

A goal when I had surgery was to be able to have very few issues when we went on a scheduled vacation. Just got back from a 2 week vacation to Italy. We walked Rome for two days, seeing many of the sites. Climbed the stairs in the coliseum and walked across Old Rome several times. Toured Tuscany for 4 days and walked Florence (in the rain). Drove to Sicily and walked up and down the hills of many old Sicilian towns. Including Ragussa Ibla, which rises several hundred feet in elevation from bottom to top of the town.

Some days I was worn out by the end but only two days did I have any knee pain at the end of the day. I'm still not 100% but well on my way.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200668491508265&set=oa.513736888680146&type=1&theater

 

[Ms.fixit]

Greetings, Iceguy;I scheduled my TKR when you did for the same reason and I too just got back from a week away.

I did pretty well!

I walked about 4 miles at a time, on fairly unchallenging terrain and the new joint performed beautifully. The surrounding leg was not always happy with what was going on, but that would happen next day, or in the middle of the night.
My energy is almost normal,(I do best with a nappy-poo, late afternoon). My biggest problem is once again my Fibromyalgia..which in my world, means I am essentially as healthy as I get!

I've also discovered SalonPas pain patches and have developed a system of laying them in a pattern on the bed, positioning myself carefully and lying back onto them, so they all adhere in the proper places in the areas I can't reach. Ten dollar a day habit, but it does help the pain enough to let me be upright for a few hours.