TKR Loneshark64’s recovery

I will try it tonight. I have ice tank but it makes noise. I try to not wake up my wife. Will try a reload at midnight thank you....
 
I found that frozen bottles of ice kept quite well in a small cooler next to the bed. I could basically just roll over and change out the ice in my ice machine without actually getting up.
 
Progress report For anyone interested:

It will be 3 weeks since my TKR on Wednesday. I have been going to PT 3x per week and taking it easy in between, other than going around the house and out a bit. I started driving last week, and successfully ran a few errands and was tired afterwards but it was fine. I started with the cane last week and now have ditched that and go without it except when I go out or need to poke the cat. I named the cane “Mjoljir” after Thor’s hammer because I am a dork.

Pain: not much. A bit sore still where my MCL is. I suspect it got strained during the surgery with all the tugging about they do. Twinges at the top of my kneecap and here and there, but not bad. I have some pain in the medial side where I assume the replacement meets the bone, it comes and goes. My doctor said he had to cut a lot of bone there, and that my surgery was the hardest he has done, it took nearly 2 hours, so I assume these little pains are from all the bone cutting he had to do to get the thing in there. The pain and grinding I used to have throughout the contact points in my knee is totally gone. I feel nothing there, so that’s good. The aching at night is improving but I still sleep intermittently. I take a little Tylenol. I ice and elevate for at least an hour a day.

Function: I can walk pretty well. I try to walk with a normal gait. At PT on Friday I did 10 minutes on the bike and some step up drills. The 2 times before I struggled with the step ups but now I could do it. Yesterday I tried just a few at home successfully. This morning I tried going up the stairs foot over foot and did 10 steps! Held on just to be careful. It wasn’t that hard. I can’t go down that way at all yet and when I have to do steps in the regular course I don’t try any of this. I am very careful.

The main problem I have is the knocking, on basically every step. It is less when I walk with intention, concentrating on controlling my gait and engaging my muscles. The knee feels loose like when I had a torn ACL/MCL but not as bad and without the pain. It also moves a bit side to side. But it also feels like though there is movement, it won’t go all the way to shifting out of joint and giving way like my ligament damaged knees did. I am told this will improve over the year as the swelling goes away and the tendons/muscles tighten around the new knee configuration. So I am not really worried but I am a little bothered and hope it does in fact tighten up. Frankly it it didn’t I could live with it. Once the swelling is less I can tell it will be better than the old knee even if it were wonky and a little unstable. I suspect that people like me who have had TKR after ligament damage might adapt a bit better because we have felt knee instability before and have had to live with some shiftiness in the knee. What I could not live with was thedegenerated bone locked up with arthritis and that is gone now.

Activity: I am doing the PT, I know that is a point of contention, but they haven’t really pushed me beyond what I could do and I feel ahead of the game by quite a bit. I have full extension and I don’t know the ROM number but good enough for the bike. In between PT days I am a lazy bum basically. I go about the house but I do almost know PT exercises at home other than a few straight leg lifts, bending a bit and the stairs like I mentioned. I try maybe one thing a day. I find a PT day on/lazy day off is working for me. On my PT day I also drive to the bank, cleaned the kitchen, a couple bathrooms and pushed the sweeper just a bit because I couldn’t stand it anymore, but on my off days I watched Netflix, read a book, and played guitar (horribly).

Mental: yes, I am completely mental. I go up and down. To misquote Alice in Wonderland I am mad as a hatter but all the best people are, aren’t we? I think it comes from a deep animal fear of having a damaged leg and not being able to keep up with the pack and defend myself. An animal with a busted bone in he knee does not survive. So I suspect the depression is existential at that level and comes from a deep place. I had the same depression with the ACL surgeries when I was 18 and 32. It was unavoidable but I did not understand it. Family did not understand it either, they think of this as “just a sports injury” that will “get back to normal”. The ACL reconstructions were never normal again and I had to adjust my life and my mind. Things just progressed slowly worse for basically my whole life until I needed TKR. What I tell myself daily now is, “this is not that.” This TKR is progressing slowly better now, for the rest of my life. But the mind plays tricks. The animal wants to run with the pack and survive. But not today. Soon enough. Fortunately my pack is 3 lazy house cats who run very little and prefer lazy off-days with Netflix and bad guitar.

I hope this info helps somebody who is going to have a TKR. FWIW....
 
I feel like I have movement in my left knee as well. They also tell me it will go away the more my muscles strengthen. However, it bugs the heck out of me and makes me not trust that knee as much. I have a history of dislocations so I think the sensation is similar to that so it’s a bit of PTSD for me. Hopefully it’ll tighten up or I’ll get over it bothering me.
 
That is it exactly and what I hope for too
 
Very helpful update! I particularly sympathize with the pack philosophy. It’s hard to let everyone run out ahead of us, I think.

Wield that mythic hammer with pride!
 
With my first TKR I had that loose feeling and sideways movement, much as it was before surgery and, like you, was concerned the surgery might not have corrected it, As the supporting soft tissue has strengthened and/or stretched it has stabilised and is not a problem now, so hang on in there. I can't tell you exactly when it improved, but it did.
 
Glad you are doing so well. Loved those nerve blocks until they wore off. Ice was my constant friend for the 1st 2 weeks. Still doing several times per day.

Wish they could give nerve blocks for 1st week at least. I did get some Zofran (anti-nausea drug) that really helped with stomach reaction to OxyCod (can't tolerate HydroCod-Vicodin at all). And lots of saltine crackers.
 
How are you doing these days LShark? How are your darling kitties...:catbutterfly: ?
I am doing fine, nice of you to ask. I’ve had by first real run of bad luck or setback this week. It has been really stiff and sore on the lateral side. I did a lot on Monday but really no more than I did a number of days last week. I thought it would be better today but it isn’t. I have my last session of PT on Friday and canceled it. I have done well with it but the exercise bike is too much I think. It is 5 weeks today and I think I can forgo the exercise bike for a while. Especially since I never liked riding them anyway.

Other than that, ROM is fine; though uncomfortable to bend this week it still gets there. I don’t know how many degrees but well past 100. I am sleeping better. It is still early and I have to keep telling myself that, which is difficult this week. I just want to be ready to work on my boat in April and be able to get it in the water and under way middle of May.

The cats are good; the kitten is still a holy terror, and being stuck at home for a month I have posted a number of Instagrams of his adventures (tjoyce64). The other 2 are sleeping a lot and the dogs are fine. Aside from the kitten and my wife who insists on being 29, this house is an old folks home for dogs and cats and me.

I need to get the other knee done but I am thinking about pushing that until spring 2021 or perhaps fall
 
With my first TKR I had that loose feeling and sideways movement, much as it was before surgery and, like you, was concerned the surgery might not have corrected it, As the supporting soft tissue has strengthened and/or stretched it has stabilised and is not a problem now, so hang on in there. I can't tell you exactly when it improved, but it did.
This is like a massive relief to me, to hear this. My dad said the same thing. I am hopeful. But it feels wonky and I just need to let it go through the process. I kind of wish I knew an exercise that would tighten the whole mess up. But I do know that when I had ACL reconstruction it felt wonky then and eventually came around so hoping for that.
 
It's interesting that we had our surgeries on the same day and seem to have similar complaints. My knees feel more stiff and sore than they did. PT told me I'm not where I should be and scheduled another 4 weeks for me. I asked if I could stop once I hit the ROM goals of 0-120. (I'm really close) They said I could stop any time. I've been pushing home exercises a little harder, which is probably causing the discomfort.

I'm finding the continued pain to be very discouraging at this point. I really thought I would see much more improvement on that front by now. My right IT band is giving me fits, even though I'm stretching and massaging it regularly.

I hope you are on that boat in April. I'm looking forward to getting on my bicycle sometime this spring.
 
I bet you will be on the bike. It is discouraging now though because I don’t really know what is hurting inside my knee. I mean, duh, the surgery, but I can’t tell if this flareup is tendinitis, a ligament sprain, something with the bone that was cut, fluid, a real problem, or just ordinary soreness. With other injuries you can usually tell, ok this is that, but with this it is a mystery to me. So, I am off to go ice it and see it I can get it to settle down a bit.

just keep swimming...
 
It's very early days for you still. I had so many different aches and pains in my first knee that I made it into a game. Every morning before I got out of bed I hedged my bets on where the pain would be that day. Unfortunately there were no prizes if I guessed right! Someone on here last year even gave all the different pains names. The things we resort to!

Even this knee that has been so good so far has developed a spot just to the left of my scar that has become really tender this week and doesn't even like my trousers pressing on it. I wondered if it was a touch of bursitis or just some nerve endings reacting. Who knows? I might see if the physio tomorrow has any idea. Hope the ice helps you.
 
I hope that spot gets better tomorrow and you don’t have to play that game for a while!
 
I am trying to ice my knee and Bailey is trying to warm it back up. That is a dedicated cat but he’s going to get cold!

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Very interested to see you had the same sort of replacement joint my hubby has had too. He also had had badly damaged cruciate in his knee with little to anchor the Replacement. Was one of the things I noticed on his pre-op letter and asked the Doctor about. So clever how this goes.

Loving the cat and dog tales. :heehee: They're fantastic companions. See you too have a reformed feral.
 
Love the cat photo. They do try to help don’t they.? Our cat sits on the back of the settee behind me in the evening. Also tends to walk over my legs when I’m sitting, which isn’t so good....
 
Love the cat photo. They do try to help don’t they.? Our cat sits on the back of the settee behind me in the evening. Also tends to walk over my legs when I’m sitting, which isn’t so good....
You are right. They do try to do what they can when they know something is off. Good to have them around.

See you too have a reformed feral
Not fully reformed but he is turning into a very good boy. He came from an Amish farm in upstate NY and I have to say he did not learn anything about pacifism from being Amish. He likes to fight. But today he licked my nose vigorously when I got up and the knee feels a bit better today so I suggest you all have an Amish feral cat lick your nose.
 
Lol!! I can't manage a wholeAmish feral but have two semi ferals who are sometimes up for a cuddle. Sounds like your little lad is doing you a power of good.

Ouch Henrietta.
 

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