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TKR Kevin's knee journey - ups and downs

@kevinR My original plan was similar to yours. Have my second replacement a few months after the first and be done. I realized pretty quickly that I could not go through it again that fast. I waited 11 months to do the second knee and that worked well for me. I probably could have done it a couple months sooner.

Something to check out. My surgeon requires six months between injections and surgery. So, if you get injections there might be a waiting period before you can have surgery.

Good luck. There’s always decisions to make, isn’t there?
 
Hi @kevinR --I'm in a similar situation. My two knees looked identically bad on X-ray but the left was giving me more trouble (although for a while they took turns!), so I did that one in November. I got a steroid injection in my right prior to surgery and since I'm not taxing it much right now, it's ok, but I too am grappling with when to do the right knee. I've decided to put off figuring it out for a couple of months lol. I did want to mention that for my surgeon, he wants a wait of 3 months after any injection prior to surgery.
 
My surgeon wants 3 months between injections and surgery. I will need to be careful scheduling if I go the injection route.
 
Yep.... I skipped a cortisone shot in my R knee because I didn't want to delay surgery!
 
Please change title to 8 week update - some good some bad.
 
kevinR said:
Please change title to 8 week update - some good some bad.
Click to expand...
Would you prefer to select a title that won't have to be changed again?
 
If I am changing too much let me know. I like having the title updated to show where I am. If that is becoming too much of a pain, I am OK with Kevin's knee journey - ups and downs.
 
I got my knee done believing the quote below. Both based on people I talked to and what I read.

Knee pain and function greatly improve during the first few weeks after knee replacement surgery. Significant improvements continue during weeks 4 through 6. By week 6, the majority of patients are off pain medications and have resumed their day-to-day routines.
Click to expand...

Here is where I am now.
  1. Pain med regime - 2x tramadol at night. 2/2 advil/tylenol every 6-8 hours.
  2. Still have pain in knee although most of the time it's not too bad. Around 3-4.
  3. Started to get more painful referred pain in my foot. Still need to take meds at 3 am although no longer have to ice.
  4. Stalled at the amount of walking based on the clunking starts to hurt. Can walk for around 10 minutes, or shop throughout one store.
  5. Have decided not to have 2nd knee done in Feb. Moved to March, but if I can get my offloader brace to work will delay til November.
  6. Stopped using any weight on knee during exercises to try to eliminate pain.
Have read lots of books, and watched a lot of TV. I am really bored. My walking group misses me.
 
Hi Kevin,
I am sorry that you based your recovery on information you've read and heard. I believe many of us do this naturally, to a point. However, when you think about it, we arrive at joint replacement in varying degrees of age, pain, disability, months or years spent struggling, pre-existing medical conditions to name a few. So it makes sense that no two recoveries will be the same. It seems you've reduced meds and your pain is easing, which is progress and promising.

Pain in the foot is a complaint of some following TKR. Wondering if it's only pain, or if it's accompanied with any other symptoms such as numbness or tingling? Hopefully it eases with rest and time.

I will leave an article on Clicking / Clunking from the BoneSmart Library which you may not have read.
Clicking/clunking knee joint after surgery

We will edit your signature in regard to your February 8th date and hope you will continue to share your journey here. At not quite two months post op, it is still considered early days into a recovery that lasts a full year for many and even longer for others. I do think it's wise that you forfeit using the weights, at least for the time being. Maybe when walking you can slowly increase by a minute, to minutes, each time using your comfort level as your gauge.
Please stay in touch and let us know once you reschedule your Right TKR. Best Wishes!
@kevinR
 
kevinR said:
Stopped using any weight on knee during exercises to try to eliminate pain.
Click to expand...
I'm glad to read this. Introducing weights too early is probably a contributor to you pain.

Our knees needs to heal from the trauma of surgery -- a process which takes months -- before we can move into training mode and starting adding weights or resistance on our bike.s

If you take a look at this chart -- especially lines 2 and 4 -- I think you will understand why any exercise during the first two months should focus on movement only.

1652123217285.png


Give that poor knee a few weeks of babying and I bet you'll notice a difference.
 
Interesting quote. What was the source? The thing is that it is not a total lie, just a very skewed and sanitized presentation of TKR recovery. For someone like my brother who trashed his knee playing football around 1970 and had a couple of bad surgeries back then and who deferred replacement until he was about 60 years old when his knee was deformed almost to be square... doc called it an elephant's foot... he did feel improved function pretty early on, simply because it was so bad to start with.

Then my recent TKR... my knee was no where near as destroyed as his was so my new knee was worse for a long time after surgery than it was pre surgery. But I was off the pain meds about day 3 (except for one at night for another couple weeks), and could get back to my "routine" by week 4 or 5. But that just means that I could get through my daily activities... NOT that I was anywhere near back to normal. So it is semantics... and that quote seems to have come from folks selling the procedure or maybe the prosthetic devices. Pretty much like a sales pitch, IMO, and that is not how I would ever describe or characterize it.

kevinR said:
I got my knee done believing the quote below. Both based on people I talked to and what I read.

Knee pain and function greatly improve during the first few weeks after knee replacement surgery. Significant improvements continue during weeks 4 through 6. By week 6, the majority of patients are off pain medications and have resumed their day-to-day routines.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
raylo said:
Interesting quote. What was the source?
Click to expand...
It came from arthritis.com from the search I did.

“Knee pain and function greatly improve during the first few weeks after knee replacement surgery. Significant improvements continue during weeks 4 through 6. By week 6, the majority of patients are off pain medications and have resumed their day-to-day routines.”

Have a nice week guys! :wave:
@kevinR
@raylo
 
“Knee pain and function greatly improve during the first few weeks after knee replacement surgery. Significant improvements continue during weeks 4 through 6. By week 6, the majority of patients are off pain medications and have resumed their day-to-day routines.”

Ah, yes, a very sanitized and generalized quote..... Just like Layla said, it greatly depends on your age, disability, prior pain, etc as to how your recovery will go. Since bone takes 12 weeks to fully heal, 6 weeks is only halfway. Yes, you will probably be feeling much better by week 6 compared to week 1 but you are nowhere near resuming all activities you might desire to do in a single day.

By 6 weeks post-op I was finally able to walk my dog around the block but could NOT (all in one day):

make dinner
grocery shop
do laundry
clean cat boxes
do dishes
walk up and down stairs normally

Things I would do in a normal day without even thinking about my knees. Yes, I was off heavy pain meds by this point and only using Tylenol and Advil. If my "day-to-day" routine was one or two of these activities, followed by lots of time of the couch, then yes, I could have done it.
 
It's two months to date since your TKR. Happy Two Month Anniversary!
I hope you're having a good week, Kevin, and find some interesting things to do to ease the boredom.
Take good care!
@kevinR
 
We are around 10 weeks following surgery. I am hanging out on the beach in Puerto Vallarta. Here is where things stand.

1) Still taking 2 advil/2 tylenol 2-3 times a day and 2 tramadol at night. I still sleep with a pillow between my legs.
2) I can now walk around 1/2 mile before my knee says that it has had enough.
3) Still back doing beginner yoga with modified positions. I am wearing a knee brace while I do it.
4) I can kneel. The only issue is that it feels totally weird between the implant and numb places.
4) I had no issues on the 4 hour flight to Mexico. I got an aisle row so I could stretch my knee as needed. I got a wheelchair to get me through customs which was brilliant, it saved about 2 hours of waiting in line.
5) ROM is same in both legs.
6) Thanks to PT, I can walk up and down 8 steps alternating legs - a major milestone.
7) Got fitted for offloader brace for right leg. I am going to take at least a year off before knee 2.

Let's see what happens over the next month!
 
Sounds like your recovery is going well, @kevinR! Kneeling and climbing stairs reciprocally are both major milestones -- congrats!

I totally get the decision to postpone TKR#2. I had also planned to do two in a row, but noticed that leftie seemed to improve after my right TKR. Having righty carry its share of the load for a change really helped.

Looking forward to your next update!
 
Great update! Walking distance, stairs, kneeling a bit :yes!:
My nearly year old knee still feels funny kneeling (with butt in the air); it can handle the weight fine, but the numbness definitely makes for odd sensations!
 
Did my 3 month followup. Told my doc that it was still really painful and was annoying hearing about friends who's knees stopped hurting in 1-3 weeks.

"I almost never see these mythical people"

Mike drop moment doc.
 
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