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TKR liam2015: 1 Year Anniversary, Life Goes On!

@Lil Cyborg ~ yes, cupping which is as you described it, (like a plunger) suction cup. she does it all around my knee and i think on top but i wasn't paying attention. she does this for around 10 minutes. next i'm given dark glasses and the therapist also wears dark glasses and aims the laser at certain spots around my knee. this only takes a few minutes. yesterday melissa used small acupuncture needles (as opposed to the longer ones) and at the same time the tens, then leaves me with a cold pack on top and underneath, lowers the lights and covers me with a blanket for 20 minutes or so. melissa has an assistant that helps with the treatments. for me, right now, the goal is to lessen the swelling in the hopes my r.o.m. will improve. what does your p.t. do?:hi:
 
@liam2015 Well, I am clearly missing out on a lot! Now, I get a little scar massage (so far the scar is pliable with no particular scar tissue felt), some gentle bending, a little quads tightening and short arc straight leg lifting, gait practice, sitting and getting up from a low chair in preparation for my desire to be able to get down on the floor and up again, just began step practice, then lastly ice and Stim machine. (As I understand it, Stim targets muscles to prevent atrophy, increase range of motion and blood circulation, reeducate muscles, etc., and is different from TENS, which blocks pain). I have no visible swelling anymore - I never had a lot - so in that respect, I'm lucky. My therapist and I also talk a lot about everything having to do with the knee and muscles and what to do and what not to do, so that part is lively. I'm afraid I plague her with lots of questions. I will ask her about the cupping, laser, and acupuncture. Your lowered lights and cozy blanket sound heavenly. All you need is a cocktail!:martini:
 
@Lil Cyborg ~ now that is a fantastic suggestion about a cocktail. when melissa was on vacation i had another physiotherapist who did everything while i was sitting up on the table and a cocktail would be the perfect accessory to the treatment.:martini: i ask for a blanket because with the ice packs on top and below, it gets quite chilly as i found out the first time and i was shivering.:ice: i had a call button but didn't want to be a nuisance lol. sounds like you're getting good physio, just maybe working on different areas. i haven't yet done exercises at physio except for the one time when she had me try the home exercises to make sure i was doing them right. she sometimes asks me to go on the exercise bike after for 5 minutes, which i've done a couple times but i have my own bike at home. interesting to hear of the different approaches to physio.
 
Lil Cyborg said:
Well, I am clearly missing out on a lot!
Click to expand...
I don't think you'rfe missing out on anything.

Cupping is a controversial treatment and I think it's unwise to have any needles (even sterilised ones for acupuncture) inserted so early in recovery.

It's perfectly possible to recover from a knee replacement with no PT at all and I think that all these extra procedures are just the PTs doing something, to feel they are helping.
 
In desperation, I had *cupping* done on my back about 25 years ago by an acupuncturist and all it did for me was leave big bruises and create swelling....just saying. Since more swelling is the last thing I want for my knee I definitely wouldn't go that route, but YMMV.
 
@Celle Prior to my surgery, the P/T used a mini toilet plunger on my patella. He said it raised the patella up a bit and gave some room underneath which could alleviate discomfort. It was used gently only on the patella and did not leave any mark. He said it was something that he had recently learned at a seminar. I had to laugh because it looked exactly like a baby toilet plunger. My current P/T, who is at the same office, said it is not used on knees after surgery. It sounds like this was different from cupping. I don't think I would want anything pulling on my patella or around my knee now, especially leaving bruises and swelling like @Pheebs52 describes!:bignono:
 
It certainly sounds like there are varying approaches to post op physio.
Here in Ontario, our provincial health plan covers group classes at the hospital where I had my surgery for about 6 weeks twice a week. I quite enjoy them, coupled with the camaraderie. There we do standard gentle exercises.
After this, I plan to soon go to a private clinic owned by my physiotherapist of 18 years. His colleague will be seeing me (as mine is more management now). My work benefits cover this rehab which will be individualized.
Even though I trust this clinic 100% before they do a "treatment", I will want to hear about the randomized, controlled, research that has proven it is helpful, and not harmful. We would never think to subject ourselves to surgery or meds that have not gone through rigourous clinical trials, so I challenge you all to insist on this information from your therapists as well.
I hope my musings here help you.
Good luck!
 
yes, definitely a lot of different approaches in post op physio. luckily i didn't start until 6 weeks post op so i avoided the aggressive therapy that some people have complained about. melissa, my physiotherapist has studied the ancient chinese therapies and is quite confident using a variety of treatments, not just the chinese. at almost 5 months post op and my r.o.m. extremely slow to improve, i'm open to trying anything that doesn't hurt. the cupping is "dry cupping" as opposed to "wet cupping". it doesn't hurt, actually feels good, very similar to massage, and hasn't left any bruising on me as she doesn't leave the cup on, she moves it around constantly. in the last few days i have noticed my bending is improving (haha maybe from taking it easy for 2 weeks):dogsniff: ~ i especially notice going down the stairs and also doing the stair lunges. i will never know if anything in particular helped or if everything in combination helped or will help. believe me, if my r.o.m. was as good as most at my stage of recovery, i wouldn't be going to physio. thank goodness for Bone Smart i'm not panicking on spending so much time in the "slow benders club",:martini: although i feel i want to try something rather than nothing other than adl's, neither of which have helped until recently. (does that make sense?) :unsure:
 
Good morning @liam2015. Glad to hear that you are sensing some improvement and that you are content in the slow benders club - we'd hate for you to get tired of us -- though most of us would like to graduate at some point. :heehee: If you are not feeling pain perhaps you could start trying other things. That's what I have been doing. I played pickleball a couple of weeks ago -- at the urging of my PT - we even practiced at one PT session. I felt like I was hobbling a bit too much so have not done it since but I may try again soon as I am getting more functional. And the hiking has been going well. I swell after just about everything but my knee doesn't hurt so I figure I'm not doing any damage. I am going to try a line dancing class next week to see how that goes. I would say if there is something you'd like to try then go for it. Perhaps one-legged hopping should be postponed for a bit.
 
hi @kmak81230 ~ yes i definitely want to do some more serious hiking other than the hiking i do in my backyard on poop patrol but i do have to carefully walk up and down hills as we live on a ravine, so i'll count that and it's so satisfying when i come up with a full bag. i've been trying out my salsa steps, not the deep ones, the small steps. i would love to get back into a class but no one teaches it anymore that i know of (other than couples), but they use a lot of salsa steps in zumba, so will look into a zumba class. my yoga instructor (which i haven't been to in a couple years now) use to have zumba and yoga dance, but stopped as they were too hard on her knees ~ she's in her early 70's and amazing, well respected in the yoga community. i don't think she had knee replacement but she may have had some repair as she would not do all the steps but would tell us what to do. we even did a little line dancing and i loved it, especially to the song "blurred lines"...the melody was perfect for line dancing. i'm sure we didn't look too elegant as sometimes we would turn the wrong way and bump into each other lol.

yes i would so like to graduate from the slow benders club. being able to do a full rotation on the bike will be my final exam and then i can be part of the alumni and hopefully encourage others. it is so weird that the swelling remains the same whether i do something or next to nothing but it must be subsiding if i am able to bend more.:unsure: btw what is "pickle ball"? is that something i could play with 7 y.o. granddaughter? thanks for the encouragement.
 
@liam2015 , you are moving forward--going downstairs is easier--:wowspring:You're considering some hikes, dancing, etc. Things are looking up!!

I'd also like to know what Pickleball is. Across the street from the lodge where I stay when I visit my mom in Hiawassee, Ga, there is a large park area devoted to it. Signs seem to indicate that they may even have yearly tournaments.
 
Pickleball is the latest craze among retirees -- like a cross between ping pong, badminton, and tennis. You play with paddles and a whiffle ball on a court about the size of a badminton court and the net is about the size of a tennis net. Very popular around here though they usually play when I'm at work. I'm not a huge devotee but my spouse is so, have played in some tournaments. It is kind of fun and easy to learn -- but some of these folks are hyper serious about it. Some of the older pickleball players here have new knees :snork:.
 
@Polkadot ~ i just looked up pickle ball on Youtube. it looks fun and easy, keeping the racquet at waist height, so hopefully you wouldn't aggravate your shoulder?? just saw your post @kmak81230. i think that's something i could do.
 
It's quite popular and there seem to be battles in some communities as the pickleballers want to take over tennis courts. Some retirement communities have laws about the kind of paddle you can use as some are quite noisy and the constant "thwacking" of the ball drives people nuts who live near the courts.
 
oh my goodness kmak81320 that's funny in a way. when we were somewhere on vacation, we were given a room right above where the tennis or squash courts were and they started playing at 6:30 a.m.:censored:
 
To keep this knee recovery focused I will keep you all updated on how my knee holds up if I attempt to play pickleball again. And perhaps post a picture.
 
yes, please do. you can take one for the team and let us know if it's a good idea.:yes:
 
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