[TKR] It's The HoneyB's Knees

Yes, I nap when she naps. We also do blocks, Legos, puzzles, etc. that let me sit or lie on the floor with my leg stretched out, and cuddle on the couch for movies. As it turns out, I had recovered ok by time for PT this morning. My flex was a couple of degrees less than usual, but step ups, pedaling, and all other exercises are still getting easier every PT visit.

 

This may sound crazy, but here goes. For my entire life, my left shoulder has been slightly lower than my right shoulder. As a teenager, I was told it was due to scoliosis, but instead the problem turned out to be that my left leg was slightly shorter than my right leg. My left hip bone was always slightly lower than my right hip bone. My left leg was slightly bowed. Since my left TKR, my shoulders and hip bones are level and my left leg is straight (no longer bowed). My left hamstring is really bothering me. I know hamstring problems are common after a TKR. I’ve never had hamstring problems. I’ve always been able to easily touch my toes, etc. Even the week of surgery, I could bend over and touch my toes and sit on the floor, bend over, and touch my toes. I’m doing hamstring stretches as part of physical therapy, but it actually feels like my hamstrings are being stretched ALL THE TIME. Is it possible that the straightening of my leg and “leveling” of my left side is causing my left hamstring to be temporarily over stretched? Is it possible that I’m doing stretching exercises on a muscle that has already been stretched to the max?

 

My physical therapist said pretty much the same thing today. We skipped my hamstring stretch exercises today.

 

I will be six weeks post-op from a left TKR 2 April 2018, and my flex has been stuck at about 105-108 for the past two weeks. Everything else seems to be progressing well. I think my biggest hinderances to increasing my flex are my IT band and hamstring. I’ve had IT band issues for years. I’ve never had hamstring issues in the past and think my hamstring issue stems from the stretching of my hamstring caused by the straightening and slight lengthening of my leg from the TKR. When I practice heel slides, I feel a pop in the hamstring area behind and slightly above my knee. It feels like something pops and then shifts to the left (toward the outside behind my left knee). The therapist can also feel this happen by placing her hand on the back of my leg just slightly above my knee. After the pop sensation, I get a pain and tightness near my hip/top-outer edge of my thigh, and on the outer edge of my shin about 3 – 4 inches below my knee. These two spots continue to hurt and feel tight as I straighten my leg from the heel slide. After straightening my leg, the pain goes away until I feel the pop during the next heel slide. The pop doesn’t happen at the top of my ROM. It happens at different angles between about 70 degrees and 95 degrees. I’ve been working on hamstring and IT band stretches for weeks, but so far it doesn’t seem to have had any effect. This is frustrating. Any tips or ideas would be appreciated.


One of the therapists said this pop could be caused by my new knee tracking differently from my old knee and causing a shift (pop) in the location of one of the hamstring muscles, and that this should self-adjust over time.

 

Thanks, @sistersinhim, @Babushelen, and @Celle! That ROM history was a good thing to save and share. I have a feeling that my PT wants to get me to 120 by my 8-week OS visit on 17 April. I reminded the PT that there's no rush; I plan to have my right TKR in May so I've got months of therapy visits ahead of me. My left knee can keep coming along while I work on my right knee. So far, they've only made me do one exercise at therapy that I felt was on the extreme side. They had me lie on my back with my left foot raised and pressed against a vertical surface (window) with my knee bent at about 90 degrees (so far so good - no pain). Then they put a weight on my ankle that caused my foot to slide down the window and bend my knee at increasing angles. My quick reaction was to place my right foot under my left foot to control the slide. When it got to the point of being pretty painful, I'd use my right foot to push my left foot back up to 90 degrees instead of letting it keep sliding down the window. It hurt, I told them it hurt, and so far I've not been told to do that again. I'll strongly consider refusing to do it again based on advice I've received on this forum. I'll try to be patient, but I sure hate feeling stuck at the same ROM. Sitting in church today caused some swelling so I've not done much more than ice and rest today.

 

Could one of the forum admins please add my implant type (ConforMIS iTotal) to my signature? Thanks!

 

Thanks, Oomworthy, jaschembra, sistersinhim! Once again, I feel reassured via this forum that what I'm going through is normal. That helps so much. Sometimes I want to shout out in therapy, "Hey - This is happening to me. Is this happening to anybody else?" Thanks to this forum, I don't have to do that. By the way, I got to 110 today at PT.

 

Thank you, Celle! Also, I realize that sometimes when I reply from my phone, my reply contains a quote of the previous post. I'm not intentionally quoting the previous post. It sometimes just happens automatically when I'm using my phone.