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TKR It's The HoneyB's Knees

It's great to hear how good you're doing! I think it'd be fine to stop PT and see how you get along. As you said, you can always start it back up.
 
You’ve got a great ROM for 4 months post op I’d definitely stop PT if I was you, but I get how great the massages are! Try just living your life and walking, it’s what we want our knees to do anyway.
 
Y'all might laugh at this, but I planned my surgery dates so that my new knees would be ready for college football season. My husband, son, daughter, and I are all alumni of Auburn University and really enjoy Auburn football season. My husband and I own a game day condo in Auburn, and our family, including our sweet grandbaby, gathers there every football weekend. Our condo is 0.8 mile from the stadium. I'm happy to say that I have no knee pain during my walk from the condo to the stadium and back, even after standing and cheering for much of the game. This past weekend, our game had a 2-hour rain/lightning delay that started just before halftime. I stood out of the rain in the stadium concourse for that entire 2-hour delay and was still fine to sit for the rest of the game and walk back to the condo afterward. I was at the stadium for more than 6 hours. I was a little stiff and sore the following day, but it still amazes me to walk around Auburn for much of the day on Saturdays with no knee pain.
 
I think IT band pain is the worst!! I thought a friend was just a crybaby when she was going to PT for IT band issues! Massages helped me the most several years ago, unrelated to either of my replacements. It's great to see how all your hard work in therapy has paid off! Such a wonderful feeling when you start doing all the same things you did pre surgery without the pain.
 
That’s just great that your knee is allowing you to do all that! Great news!

I planned my TKR so I’d miss my classroom Halloween party! So whatever floats your boat!
 
HoneyB glad to hear that your recovery is going so well. Sounds like you have gotten the result we all are aiming for. I get Righty done next Weds hoping to put this saga in the rear view mirror.
 
@Larryhg3 - Good luck to you! Despite what I'd read over and over on the forum, I thought my recovery for knee #2 would go faster than it did for knee #1 because I'd "been there and done that" and knew what I was doing. Ha! That was not the case. I liked the different version of physical therapy using weight machines that I did with knee #2, but my knee still dictated the speed of recovery. I'm still working on stretches for my psoas muscle and IT Band. I hope those are my last hurdles. I've had IT Band problems pretty much my entire life so that was not a surprise. I also had to deal with that with knee #1. The psoas muscle problem is most likely caused by 30+ years of a desk job causing a shortened psoas muscle. I've learned so much about different muscle groups as I've gone through this ordeal that I think I may develop OCD about keeping all of those muscles in shape from now on. I plan to take 5-10 minute breaks every hour during my work day to keep cycling through the various stretches. Since my office is in my home, nobody will be around to think I'm nuts. I lie on the edge of the kitchen table to do a quad stretch and an IT Band stretch, both of which require me to hang my leg over the side. My 3-year-old grandbaby thinks that's hilarious. :)

Again, good luck! I'll be watching for you to post after surgery.
 
Wonderful to hear of your progress @HoneyB - you must be so encouraged, despite the bits of muscle and nerve issues you are still experiencing. You can trust those will resolve over time.
 
Just caught your post. I am also a conformis recipient , and at 4 plus weeks into recovery seem to be ahead of the curve. Very little swelling, pain hovers between 0 and4. Just left PT ,which as an old jock, I happen to like. They push me on all aspects of recovery and after every exercise they ask any pain, and 95 percent I answer no. There is this one toe lift /heel stretch that the back of my leg doesn’t like yet lol. At 3 visits, my walking gate has increased to pretty much normal , and I don’t feel like I am dragging along an old log anymore. I have a choice of having right knee done in April of 2019, or wait till September again. Will see how things progress thru the 3 month mark before I make the call. So far am glad I went with custom knee.
 
@Softtail - Having my second knee replaced 3-1/2 months after the first means that I've been in recovery for 8 straight months. It's been long, but now that I'm near the end, I'm glad I went ahead with the second one instead of waiting. If I were going to therapy for #2 at the same place as I went for #1, I'm pretty sure I would have been released from therapy by now. The physical therapy group I'm using for #2 uses weight machines (which I know isn't recommended by Bonesmart), but I've enjoyed the strengthening with the machines. I also get great massages there. My range of motion is fine. I'm still going to PT to fine tune some nagging little muscle issues. I'm to the point now where, at the end of each session, I kind of expect them to tell me to not come back. They're real nice folks. I think I'll miss them when PT ends.
 
I had a conformis also and I have had a great recovery as well I am a little over six weeks out I still have some pain at night when I sleep My range of motion is 130 and plus 4 I am struggling with straigtening because of my pre operation scar tissue Hoping to get a couple more degrees as the last of the swelling goes away I really think the conformist knee is an easier recovery I will need my second knee done eventually and I worry that conforms might not be around as there stock is under a buck and they are still losing money. I would hate to use a traditional off the shelf knee knee
 
Wow, @fish58! You're doing great for six weeks! I was just the opposite as far as straightening/flexion goes. Both of my knees were almost completely straight from the very beginning, but I had to work on flexion. I've had to work more on the second knee than the first. However, my surgeon told me to expect a longer recovery period than normal for both knees due to the amount of realignment he had to do. He said it would take my muscles a while to adjust to the new alignment.
 
@HoneyB, I love reading about your recovery. Yes, sometimes I worry people will jump into using weights too soon because you are having fun with your PT, but it’s so great to see you taking charge of your recovery the way you do. It’s all about what works for the individual.

As far as custom knees go... I believe they are the future. Right now they are in early days and the results so far are promising. I opted for traditional knee implants (off the shelf) and could not be happier. They work beautifully and I had a smooth recovery. So people need not fear them. But I believe science will someday make us immortal, so... robots and custom body parts (grown or made) will be in our future.
 
I am curious about something you said about your surgeon saying you should expect a longer recovery because of the amount of realignment he had to do. I was extremely bow legged (still am in right knee) in the operated knee ,which looks to be corrected now. I was wondering if this would have overall bearing on the replacement and/or healing. Hadn’t heard anyone else mention this on the site, as something their surgeon had told them. Interesting, and wonder if this really comes into play. Either way sounds like your knees are coming around nicely, and hope to follow suit.
 
@Softail - I had one leg slightly longer than the other. It wasn't enough to make me walk with a limp but, according to my doctor, it was enough to make my body feel as if I was walking on a banked track my entire life. I was very active growing up and, even as a child, my knees ached after long, busy days. Having one leg longer than the other caused IT Band problems like runners who run on banked tracks often have. I'm still working on stretching my IT Bands. I had one shoulder and one hip lower than the other due to my leg length discrepancies. Now I'm all level. Yay! I'm not exactly sure how the surgeon made me level. My first knee replacement was on my short leg. I appeared to be level after that. I asked my surgeon if I'd go back to being unlevel again after my right knee replacement. He said that was possible. He said that's it's easier to level someone up during hip replacements than during knee replacements. Looking back at my x-rays, it looks like I have a much thicker knee spacer/plastic cartilage in my short leg than in my long leg. Maybe that's how Conformis leveled me up. I plan to ask the surgeon about that when I see him in December. Anyway, my surgeon said that as my body adapted to my hips and shoulders being level, I might experience problems similar to those caused by scoliosis surgery. My therapist mentioned today that some of the lingering pains I have seem like pains often associated with back issues instead of leg issues.

My legs were slightly bowed below my knees, with my longer leg being more bowed than my shorter leg. My shorter leg looks straight to me now. My longer leg still looks a little bowed. My legs are straight from my knees up, but I think they were pretty straight from my knees up before surgery.
 
@SusieShoes - I've watched two people (one of whom is a friend) who also got Conformis knees start therapy a month after me and end therapy before me. That made me thing "ugh" both times. One of my therapists told me today that I'm his poster child for knee replacement. I asked him if that's because it appears that I'll be there forever. He said, no, it was because I've had a good recovery while going about my normal life in the process. As I've mentioned before, I work from a home office and started back to work shortly after each surgery (mostly from my sofa), and I started back to keeping my 3-year-old grandbaby all day 3 - 4 weeks after surgery. Also, 3 months after my second knee replacement, I was in Auburn, AL standing while tailgating before football games, walking from our gameday condo to the stadium (almost a mile), spending hours in the stadium, and then walking back to the condo. Auburn is about a 3.5 hour drive from where I live, and I usually do the driving for that trip. He said that my level of activity most likely slowed down my recovery because my knee didn't get to rest as much as advised, but he was impressed with my ability to just go ahead with life and bring my new knees along for the ride. I think if I told them I wanted to stop going to therapy, they'd be fine with that, but I still feel benefits from it so I'm deciding a week at a time whether to keep going.
 
Well….I’m 20 WEEKS post-op for knee #2 and still in physical therapy! I’ve mostly enjoyed PT so I haven’t minded continuing, but I’m back now to working 40-hour weeks so my time has become precious. I asked my exercise therapist at my last session of last week what goals they had for me that I hadn’t yet met. He said I would need to talk to my physical therapist, but he thought I could start transitioning to a regular gym to continue with my strengthening exercises, but I needed to pick a gym and join it BEFORE stopping PT. Again, I didn’t mind hearing this because I’ve enjoyed the strengthening exercises on the weight machines, plan to continue them, and plan to add some upper body strengthening to my routine. So…..I checked out the Wellness Center on the campus of a hospital that is very close to my house, and filled out the paperwork to join starting November 1. Today at PT, my physical therapist saw me before I started my exercises. He measured my ROM on knee #2 at 0 – 120+ (I think 123) unassisted with very little effort. Without doing any massage, he gently pushed it to 130 with surprisingly little discomfort (tightness in my quads) but no pain. He measured my ROM on knee #1 at 0 – 135 unassisted with very little effort. He pushed it to 140 with no discomfort at all. I figured he would then tell me I was ready to move on to the Wellness Center. Instead, for knee #2, he noted to my exercise therapist that my distal quad tendon is tight and my IT Band is still tight, and gave instructions for stretching and massage of those. He wants me to go to the Wellness Center twice per week and continue PT once per week through most/all of November so they can make sure I don’t regress, keep an eye out for any problems, and make sure the distal tendon is loosening. He said that when people speak of a “quad tear,” it’s that distal tendon that usually tears, and he wants mine loosened up before discharging me. I trust his judgement.

I picked the hospital’s Wellness Center over the many local gyms because their gym is staffed with people who have exercise therapy education and training, and they have access to physical therapists, who are just across the hall in the rehab center, for tweaking exercise routines to fit problems. Membership also provides all sorts of health screenings throughout the year. I was feeling pretty good as I filled out the membership paperwork. I got to choose “No” for every kind of health issue, “None” for medications, and “Normal” for BMI. Then I got to the health risk categories: low, medium, and high. I was feeling pretty cocky until I saw that everybody over age 55 is automatically categorized as HIGH risk….. Wait, what? I hope I don’t keel over and die on the leg press machine.
:upright:
 
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Good to hear your success story HoneyB. Finding a PT who earns your trust and helps you achieve your goals is awesome. After all most of us do this to improve our quality of life.
 
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