TKR JDinCT Recovery Thread

[catkin69]

Afternoon update....

I walked about 200 feet with assistance of a walker... once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Also had me do five stair steps up and down twice. Was not super comfortable… but not painful either. Will be going home with a walker for the near future.

Assuming I do as well tomorrow morning, I will be discharged in the afternoon.

Took out my catheter, morphine drip and incision drain around lunch time. I had about 1000ml from the incision drain over 36 hours.

They increased my oxycodone from 5 mg every three hours to 15 mg every three hours since I'm off the morphine drip. Received a Toradol injection for inflammation in the afternoon. So far I'm tolerating all the meds well.

The post-surgical dressing was removed and the incision looked pretty good.... hoping to get a few hours of sleep again tonight....

What are all the lines on there for?

 

[JDinCT]

Good morning everyone!

Night two wasn't too bad... managed 5 hours of quality sleep in two stretches. Unfortunately got behind the curve on my pain meds in middle of the night... that WON'T happen again....

Cleared by my surgeon this morning to be discharged... now all I have to do is clear PT and I will be home free.





My bandages have been removed and now I can shower normally. Little more swelling today, but I understand that's expected from the PT and overnight trips to the restroom.

Thanks for everyone's continued support and feedback.... it's very much appreciated!!

 

[Bionic]

That's looking pretty neat.

 

[JDinCT]

Just completed my last PT in the hospital and was cleared by PT to go home...

Not that it really means anything and just as a point of reference since they measured it... my ROM was 0 and 70...

 

[JDinCT]

@catkin69 My understanding of the lines is to give the surgeon a frame of reference during surgery and to ensure incision closure is close to where the skin was originally.... but I'm not a medical doctor... but did stay at HSS for the last two nights...

 

[catkin69]

@catkin69 My understanding of the lines is to give the surgeon a frame of reference during surgery and to ensure incision closure is close to where the skin was originally.... but I'm not a medical doctor... but did stay at HSS for the last two nights...

That makes sense. I think 2 days in hospital and you are practically qualified!

 

[NavyGunns]

@JDinCT, I had the same lines on my knee, and yes, that is exactly what they are for. I know, cause I asked. Lol.... guess it’s the engineer and quality expert in me wanting to be sure. In my case, external closure was done with surgical glue. Waiting for my 1 yr mark and then I’ll post a new pic. “Problem” will be that you won’t hardly see my scar. Benefits of the glue in my opinion.

 

[kneeper]

You're off to a good start!

 

[JDinCT]

Hello everyone.... night 3 was challenging. Included transition from the hospital cocoon to home. Additionally meds have been reduced from 15 mg oxycodone every three hours to 5-10 mg every 4-6 hours with a max of 8 mg/day. Also taking two Tylenol 650 mg (timed release) every 8 hours for pain.

Did not get more than a couple hours of quality sleep.

The knee was pretty swollen and painful from the trip home and getting everything situated. Had to employ the icing/compression machine all night to get things to calm down. This consisted of 30 minutes ON, 30 minutes OFF, 30 minutes ON, etc. and seemed to reduce the pain and swelling to a tolerable level.

Right now I'm laser focused on pain and swelling control. Still somewhat of a challenge to get in/out of bed. I'm using the "Hook Method" to lift my operated leg off/on bed as my quads are not quite up to the challenge just yet of lifting my operated leg in/out of bed on their own. The knee joint still feels very "stiff".

Using walker whenever I get out of bed to rest room or some minor hall way "walking". Doing ankle pumps in bed as well. That's about all for the PT regimen right now.

Managed to navigate first shower today as well.

Home health care nurse is scheduled to come around lunch time today for an assessment... we see what that brings.

Hope everyone is doing as well as they can!

 

[Bionic]

@JDinCT
Your leg doesn't look very swollen but then perhaps thats because of the ice machine, or perhaps you usually have very skinny legs
Recovery sounds much the same as mine, my knee joint feels very stiff too. As if its been blown up with a bike pump.

I couldn't get my leg on and off the bed either and then all of a sudden I was able to use the 'hook' method too and haven't looked back since.

I only used a walker in hospital so getting to the bathroom, or anywhere else, its crutches. Because of the 2 hip ops last year I am quite good on the crutches anyway.

I do like your red bag

 

[JDinCT]

@Bionic I guess you're right that it's is all about context when accessing "swollen" and other qualitative assessments.... here's some relative context for swelling of my right knee...

 

[Bionic]

@JDinCT
Yep, just as I thought, you have slim legs. I am envious

 

[JDinCT]

Home health care nurse and Home PT came by for initial assessment. Each remarked that the incision looked great and all looked very good overall. They were both knowledgeable of HSS and the typical excellent quality and outcomes of their surgical services.

Will see the nurse likely once a week for next couple weeks and PT is currently scheduled for 3x/week. I will see how the PT schedule and PT rigor goes. I did tell PT that I'm OK with going into the discomfort zone, but not into the pain zone. First PT is Monday morning.....

Stay tuned....

All the best to everyone!

 

[Rick951]

@JDinCT You look very good for 3 days out. Don't do what I did (before I found BoneSmart). I pushed my home PT WAY to hard. By day 3 I was starting to swell due to over work. It took several weeks for the swelling to go down. I made the most progress when I spread out my PT exorcises over several hours. Do a few leg lifts, stop, do a few ankle pumps, stop. I would only work to slight discomfort.
Now at 5 1/2 months out, I feel GREAT!! I did have to learn how to walk without a limp, I have glad to leave that behind... As many have said,"this is a marathon not a sprint"!

 

[JDinCT]

@Rick951 Thank you for dropping in with that excellent advice. I was actually thinking about that very thing tonight. Good to hear you are progressing well!

 

[JDinCT]

Gooooooood morning everyone!

Managed about 5 hours of good quality sleep last night.... an additional 2-3 hours of twilight rest. I'm running the ice/compression machine throughout the night and I think this is a main contributor to me getting relative good quality and quantity of sleep. Usually I get up 1-2 times during the night to replenish the ice in the machine.

I did perform some extra stretching yesterday after meeting with the home PT. Not sure if that's a direct contributor or not, but this morning my flexibility was greater and overall stiffness was less than yesterday morning. This morning I could also put about 80-90% of my weight on my new knee while still using the walker for stability and balance.

I've decided to try and reduce my oxycodone pain meds from 10 mg every six hours to 5 mg every six hours starting with the morning dose. I plan to be completely off the oxycodone by 1 week post-op.... Will continue with two 650 mg Tylenol three times daily for the foreseeable future.

All encouraging so far.... hoping the positive trend continues...

The best to all in recovery!

 

[NavyGunns]

@JDinCT, keep up the positive outlooks as they really help with recovery. If you find a way to share any of that with others, we have a few who could benefit from such. I know it worked wonders for my PKR recovery as well as a prior major surgery 3 years ago. Might not be around these days if it weren’t for that kind of outlook.

 

[Bionic]

@NavyGunns
I believe you are absolutely right about PMA (positive mental attitude). I think it's what got me through a very serious car accident, many years ago, and other things that have cropped up over the years.

If you can maintain a PMA you are halfway to the finishing line.

 

[JDinCT]

Good morning everyone!

Day 6 Post-OP Update.....

Continue to get about 4-5 hours of quality sleep each night.... with about additional 2-3 hours of twilight sleep. I am so thankful and fortunate about this aspect of my recovery. I wish I could nail down the secret formula for my very fortunate circumstance as most of the recovery threads I have read cited lack of sleep as the most often adverse aspect of recovery.

I have decided to embark on a PT regimen for my recovery. For me, I think this will provide the best quality and quickest recovery. Yesterday was my first post-op in-home PT session. The one hour session consisted mostly of various types of stretching. The therapist did have me ascend and descend the stairs in my house with a cane (about 15 stairs). I was able to negotiate them with little difficulty. Actually found this very helpful as I normally work from home and my normal office is upstairs. In the afternoon I had the need to retrieve a file from my office and felt very comfortable ascending the stairs, retrieving the file and descending the stairs back to my temporary office in my bed.

I will say the PT session was challenging and did drive into the discomfort zone several times. Immediately after PT I had a great feeling of accomplishment and well being. The PT session did result in increased swelling about an hour after the session. I did have to ice and elevate constantly the remainder of the afternoon with a 30 min ON, 30 min OFF, 30 Min ON schedule for the following 8 hours and one final session just prior to bedtime.

I will modify my PT therapist standard protocol going forward in that I want him to show me any new "exercises" that he may have each session... I will then perform ONE SET ONLY so he can ensure I have the correct form... and then I will perform any additional required sets later in the day. I think I overdid the first session by doing all the sets of each "exercise" as he introduced them. My plan is to spread out the PT throughout the day followed immediately by a 30 minute cryo compression therapy session after each exercise (or set of exercises) . I hope this method will alleviate some of the PT induced swelling.

For information ONLY... my ROM was +5 and 95 at end of PT session.

This morning the knee felt "tight", but most, if not all, the PT induced swelling was gone.

I have discontinued the cryo compression during the overnight as it had become uncomfortable and was inhibiting my sleep more than it was helping.

Hope everyone is doing better today than the day before!

Stay Positive... Stay Strong!!

 

[Bionic]

@JDinCT
You sound as if you are doing really well and I would love your sleep pattern. I think being able to get a reasonable amount of sleep is a real help to recovery.

I had my first physio session this morning and it's very different to your but I will give a full update on my own thread.

Keep,up the good work