Guest viewing is limited

TKR It's The HoneyB's Knees

There’s nothing like a “grandbaby fix” - it makes everything feel better. :spin: I kept my 6 month old granddaughter one day last week. She’s at such a cute age and she’s a very happy and content baby. My knee was a little tired at the end of the day but i was fine by the next day - no swelling or soreness. I would have been okay with a little of both because the boost to my mental health was worth it. “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Very true, King Solomon!

I hope you’ve hit on the right combo of Tylenol and Ibuprophen. Any idea what it is about pain medicine that causes ringing in the ear? I know there are others here who have the same issue, but I don’t think I had ever heard of it before coming to the forum.
 
chicklet said:
Any idea what it is about pain medicine that causes ringing in the ear? I know there are others here who have the same issue, but I don’t think I had ever heard of it before coming to the forum.
Click to expand...
It's quite well reported in medical literature that some medicines (not all) can cause ringing in the ear (tinnitus).
 
@chicklet - I've worked from a home office for 30+ years. I never dreamed I would be able to do that as an electrical engineer, but I started working from home right after my oldest child was born and I'm still doing it. My son-in-law is a nurse at a hospital and works a different schedule every week. I keep my grandbaby on the days that he works. On those days, I have her from about 6:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. I started back with keeping her when I was 3-weeks post-op with knee #1 and 4-weeks post-op with knee #2. It's definitely knee PT of a different variety. :) Sometimes she will even say, "Honey, is it time to play exercises?" She's a pro at heel slides and straight leg raises.
 
Gosh, I wish I’d had a grandchild staying with me for play exercises! :roseshwr: That would make recovery so much fun! Or maybe forever ruin my desire to see grandchildren... no, that could never happen. More fun!
 
New Knee #2 (RTKR) was 8 weeks old yesterday. My ROM was measured at PT as 0 – 112. My therapist easily and gently pushed my knee to 120 with no pain for me. He said that I got to 120 so easily that, with a massage and gentle stretching, he was sure he could get me to 130, but I politely declined that offer. He laughed. :loll:

I saw my surgeon today for my 8-week checkup. He said my x-ray looked great, extension looked great, flexion looked great, he had no doubt that my ROM would continue to improve as the soft tissues healed, and he’d see me again in four months. Another milestone in the books.
 
In the grand scheme of problems people have, this is a "nothing," but it certainly is disappointing to not be able to take Ibuprofen....especially after having two knee replacements. I thought maybe I could handle just one capsule every 12 hours (with the recommended dosage being one every 6 hours), but after four days of that, my face, hands, knee (ouch!), and ankles are swollen up like balloons. Ugh.
 
It’s not a “nothing” if it makes you swell up like that! :yikes: Not being able to take it does limit your “minor aches and pains (and headaches)” arsenal, though.
 
If you're a Star Trek fan, my face looked like a Klingon this morning. I had "fat" rolls on my forehead and four rolls on the bridge of my nose. Couldn't wear any of my rings, both knees were swollen, ankles bulged over my shoe tops. So, no more Ibuprofen for me. No fun. I tried Aleve years ago and stopped taking it. I can't remember if it caused swelling or some other problem. If I take the allowed 4000mg of Tylenol, my ears ring really loud, and Tylenol doesn't seem to do much for this anyway. I'm thinking of trying something topical. Has anybody found a cream or gel that works? I guess I should make an appointment with my general physician.
 
Oh, that sounds awful, I’m sorry.

I got EAFC Pain Releiving Cream. I thought I posted this for you before, but maybe not. I got this from my chiropractor & it really works very well! I rarely take any Advil or Tylenol any more. You can get it on Amazon too. Kind of spendy, but Worth it (works much better than BioFreeze) if you’ve ever tried that. You don’t need much at once either. I hope you find something that works!
 
HoneyB said:
my face looked like a Klingon this morning. I had "fat" rolls on my forehead and four rolls on the bridge of my nose. Couldn't wear any of my rings, both knees were swollen, ankles bulged over my shoe tops. So, no more Ibuprofen for me.
Click to expand...
Definitely no more Ibuprofen for you! Make sure your own doctor/PCP knows about your reaction to it.

My husband has a similar reaction to Ace Inhibitor drugs. They not only made his face swell externally - they also caused his tongue and airways to swell, which was dangerous. In the ED, he was given anti-histamine drugs intravenously, to combat his reaction. It took about 3 anxious hours before he could breathe properly again.
 
@Celle - My GP is aware of it. We discovered this problem in 2010 when I was in a car wreck and he prescribed Meloxicam for a shoulder injury. My swelling was so significant that he checked my kidney function, which was fine. When I started seeing an orthopedist for knee pain, he tried Piroxicam and then Lodine. Both caused the same problem. My husband remembered when I tried his Aleve. He said it also caused swelling for me. I do plan to talk to my GP about this because it would be nice to find something I can tolerate in case I need something from time to time. At least I can ice.......
 
The good new is, once all of the ibuprofen-induced swelling went away, I've been able to manage ok with 1000mg of Tylenol a couple of times per day. I made it through church, lunch at a restaurant, and sweeping and mopping my kitchen before needing the first dose today. I took the second dose just now before crawling into bed. The light at the end of the tunnel looks a little brighter. I'll be 9 weeks post-op tomorrow.
 
New Knee #2 Week 10 (tomorrow). I reached a milestone today. I can go DOWNstairs normally, though somewhat slowly. For me, with both knees, going downstairs normally came about six weeks after going upstairs normally. Knee #1 is almost six months old now and behaving like a champ. I've also cut 3.5 minutes off of my half-mile walk time, but I'm still about 2 minutes slower than my old time when I used to walk 2.5 - 3 miles every day. I'm not trying to walk fast. I'm concentrating on walking with a good, steady stride, but I'm getting a little faster while doing that. My neighborhood is built in a 1/2 mile loop. About 1/8 mile of that is flat. The rest is a long uphill and long downhill. The uphill side shows me that I lost lots of endurance while not walking daily when I had two bad knees. The light at the end of the tunnel keeps getting brighter.
 
Awesome, congrats! I'm 3 months out and still waiting for the day I can go downstairs normally! At least I am finally able to pedal all the way around on a bike, hoping the stairs are not far behind
 
@pacosmom - I had to work on the downstairs thing. I started with a short step at my house that is about half the height of a normal stair step. I started about 3 weeks ago stepping down that short step 2 or 3 times every time I went outside. (It's the bottom step of my front porch steps and is just one brick tall.) When it started getting easier, I started trying a normal height stair step in the house where I had a stair rail to hold onto. It felt awkward and hurt a little for about a week. Today, it finally felt pretty good, but I'm not turning loose of that hand rail anytime soon. I went down the entire flight of stairs normally. Ha! How big some of these small victories feel!

@Jajakio - Tomorrow will be two weeks since my ROM was measured at PT prior to my 8-week post-op visit to my OS. I know my extension is fine. I'm curious about whether my flexion has increased. I think I'll ask them to measure it tomorrow. (My PT group I used with knee #1 measured every time I went, so it seems odd that this group hardly every measures. I think they don't want to make a big deal of it.) I was at 112 at eight weeks. Fingers crossed that it's increased a little bit.
 
I haven't posted in a while so just an update.

Well Glory, Glory, Hallelujah - Today, almost 17 weeks post surgery for knee #2, I bent my knee to 120 degrees all by myself. My therapist bent it to 128 with no pain after a brief massage. Bent knee #1 (7.5 months post-op) to 135 degrees all by myself. I still have an outer quad and IT Band problem with #2 that makes it feel like I have a metal rod running down the side of my leg and makes it feel like it's not bending. For instance, when the therapist measured 120, I would have guessed I was at about 105-110. That's partly because I always compare #2 to #1 and didn't realize #1 was at 135 with no effort.

I'm still working on the various weight machines at PT for strengthening. I'm not sure how much longer I'll continue with PT. I still have some muscle/nerve pain issues I'm working on. I'll ask about that at my next session. I was too shocked to ask today. I'm thinking I might stop going to PT, work on my issues at home, and if I continue to have issues, get a new PT order from my surgeon when I see him December 4 for knee #2's 6-month checkup.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Corganics CBD

Members online

No members online now.
Total: 800 (members: 0, guests: 800)

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom