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MUA LTKR, 8 weeks out; MUA at week 5; worried about ROM

Celle is so right! I would cry and be very afraid as I only had 90 degrees at 4 months... But NO WORRIES! I does come. I only have just over 100 ROM at just over 6 months now - my TKR was Feb. 15 this year. I have no pain now, no pills, my sleeping is wonderful and I exercise once moderately every day. I can do just about everything but I gain ROM every day when I challenge going on the stairs or get into my car properly or dance! So do not worry. Heal first! Before you know it you will be all better and you can just continue your journey without pain and before you know it you will be having this huge smile on your face as you will have days when you forget you even had a total knee replacement! hugs Marilynne
 
You're right, @Thesoutherncook. I was misleading. Silver Sneakers has been around a long time and will continue to exist. I should have said that recently expanded wellness benefits like Silver Sneakers may not continue to be free in various health plans if Medicare gets a belt-tightening.
 
I am just getting caught up on your thread, and I can certainly empathize with your struggles. Only in the past week or so have I gotten back on a more normal sleeping schedule, but honestly I have no idea how, why, what changed, etc. I am just happy that it is happening! My anxiety would get worse because of the lack of sleep, so when I was up in the middle of the night in the silence, my brain would run marathons, and generally nothing good can come from that for me! I am happy to read that your progress is steadily moving forward and like the sound of some sort of exercise program, preferably self-paced! I know that we keep saying it to each other and ourselves, but it DOES get better! :flwrysmile:
 
Fire wolf said:
Only in the past week or so have I gotten back on a more normal sleeping schedule,
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This may be good news for me, @Fire wolf, as you are a couple of weeks ahead of me in your recovery. I can only hope! I guess I need patience. My brain also runs marathons. I had enough trouble shutting it off pre-TKR!
 
Shutting my brain off has always been a challenge for me, and still is! :running: I have been taking Tylenol PM as my last dose of Tylenol for the night throughout, so I can't necessarily say that has helped my sleep, though I don't think it hurt it in any way! I also tried melatonin but cut that out recently as I don't know if it was helping and I didn't know if it was contributing to my feeling so tired in the morning. So it's been a hit or miss game of trial and error, and I just think that when it was finally time for my body to readjust, it just did. Hopefully it happens for you, and soon!!!:yes:
 
@Pheebs52 says this is 16 weeks, so it must be! Too-Lazy-to-Count Report

Flexion seems to have back-slid to around 96, which worries me a bit. I'm doing more daily walking plus ADLS so have been doing less stretches. Wondering if I should make sure I do and increase the heel slides, wall slides, quadruped pullback, etc? It's been so freeing not to have to worry about them and to do them just when I feel like it. :unsure:

My PT has been working on the really sore connections in the muscles and tendons surrounding the knee and in the quads and calves. She has noticed an increase in swelling behind the knee--some puffiness, not that rock-hard sausage business, thank goodness! The intervention seems to be helping, although it is a little ouchy when she works on the trigger points. Friday is my last day, but she says I could do two more sessions next week if I want to--my prescription isn't quite fulfilled.

My knee continues to take little baby steps toward things it can do. At PT, the upright exercise bike is "easy" after "Rosebud" works her kinks out for a minute or so. Eyeballing the seat height, it looks low enough to be do-able on a real outside bike if my knee and I become brave enough to try it. That trial may happen this weekend. We are gong to spend the weekend in Muskegon with daughter and granddaughter, and renting bikes is on the agenda. We will probably rent two bikes and a two-person quad, so I can go a distance (in the quad). Everyone else can rotate into and out of the quad, which seems to be popular. I can try out one of the rented bikes if I want. Muskegon has a really great system of walking and biking trails and boardwalks, so no rough terrain.

"Bud" also conquered the elliptical this week after a couple of failed tries the past couple of weeks. 5 minutes on the elliptical makes me feel like I'm doing something for my whole body, not just for my knee, which is progress, isn't it?! The leg press has become so easy with two feet that I'm just doing one leg at a time now. These are things I can continue when I "graduate" to a gym.

Walking upstairs is becoming less painful, and I can manage going downstairs foot over foot most mornings, although it is still challenging not to lift my hip. "Rosebud" rarely seizes up for more than a minute when I stand up after sitting for a while, and walking around the house or the grocery store, I sometimes forget about my knee. I'm enjoying an almost-nightly walk in a nearby park on a nice, soft combination of groomed, sandy trails and some forgiving blacktop. Last night I considered adding another side trail to the 1.3-mile loop we're currently doing. Then a mosquito got me, and we decided not to. (Despite being an entomologist, DH is "done" with walks as soon as the first mosquito makes its appearance. Good thing he isn't his colleague, who sticks his arm into a mosquito box filled with hundreds of mosquitoes and lets them feed on him to gather data!). By the time we got back to the car, I could tell that adding to the distance was not in "Rosebud's" best interest. I am dying to get to the point where I can do 4 miles or more as I used to do.

I know comparing is a no-no, and I am very happy for all of my friends here who are doing great things at this juncture in their recovery. However, I would be dishonest if I didn't put in here that I have qualms about my own recovery when I read about (and celebrate!) participants whose recent MUAs have resulted in "bends" of 120, when a friend whose recovery has been paralleling mine suddenly takes a turn for the better and whose "bend" improves amazingly (again, celebrations!), or when I realize that things like hockey and taking steps two at a time are not anything I could even begin to consider right now! (Maybe shuffleboard; does anyone play that any more?). I'm still firmly in the slow-benders club and trying hard to stay out of the ODIC. :cry:
 
:rofsign:Too Lazy to Count Report - I love it! It is a great report nonetheless Polkadot!!! Rosebud is doing awesome! As you know, I have the same wonders and worries about the stretches . . . As I do other things I don't seem to have time for all the stretches . . . I also love the elliptical for the same reasons as you. And the leg press one legged - BRAVO! I am still two legged at the very lowest possible setting, kind of afraid to let the new knee do too much work. I mostly use the leg press for the bending and stretching positions.

I'm so jealous of the upcoming bike rental outing in Muskegon - I hope the weather is awesome and the bikes work well for you. Post photos please next week. You will get to your 4 mile walks soon I expect. I think you are probably walking more than I am. Aside from walking to and from my car at work or to and from meetings I am doing most of my walking on weekends.

Ditto on the comparing. I think I have to just forget about the ROM . . . my PT seems to have . . and clearly I am in a plateau or downslide period. We'll just have to be content to hold court in the slow benders club.

I think pickleball is the new shuffleboard. You should check it out. Your athletic daughter could probably help you get into it.
 
you're doing really great Polkadot. just the fact that you are going to attempt riding a real bicycle outdoors is very ambitious. i don't understand what you mean by a "2 person quad". i look forward to being able to ride my bike again someday. there is a wonderful bike path from niagara-on-the-lake to niagara falls my friend and i went on a couple years ago.

just to give you some perspective, you say that your r.o.m. has backslid to 96 degrees and i'm proud to say mine has improved to 97 degrees (comfortably) and my surgery was more than a month before yours! keep holding on to the fact that we can continue to gain flexion for well over a year. sounds like you're getting the strength training along with the flexion/extension at p.t. that's where i find i'm having some issues, ie. up and down stairs but holding on to handrails and often going up, i'm pulling myself up with upper body. it's good to have such lovely company in the slow-benders club.:friends: i love your "too lazy to count myself" comment.:snork:

@kmak81230 have you tried out that pickleball yet? i must see if we have it up here. looks like fun and not too hard on the shoulders as something like tennis or badminton could be.
 
I have only tried it once since surgery but felt like I was limping too much so stopped. My PT always says form before function so didn't want to get into some bad hobbling habits. It is easy to pick up - much easier than tennis and you are right, probably not hard on the shoulders as the racket is quite lightweight.
 
This recovery is hardest when we can't see our own progress. You're doing fine and can see yourself biking, and doing things like hiking and traveling, that you wouldn't have considered not that long ago. I'm not sure that doing more stretches is what you need.

If your PT has noticed more swelling in your knee, that tells you the reason for your decreased flexion. Swelling. The question is why more swelling now. Could it be something you recently started doing? Leg presses are hard on new knees. Just a thought for you to consider. Sometimes things we do don't seem to bother the knee at the time we're doing them, only to result in swelling and pain later.

Your plan for Muskegon sounds perfect, and like great fun! The quad is a good idea. We have the same thing at the Jersey shore, except we call them surreys. Rent a bike, rent a surrey... all fun. I hope you have a wonderful weekend with your daughter and granddaughter.
 
@kmak81230, I knew you would relate to my wondering about whether I should be doing more, or less, or ??? Pickleball is in my future, I'm predicting. Re Muskegon, the weather looks to be 80 degrees and sunny on Saturday and almost that warm and partly cloudy on Sunday. About as warm and perfect as we can get in September here in Michigan! I think that when you do make your way back to the area for a beach visit, we should consider meeting up. Wouldn't that be something?

Thanks, @liam2015! You and I are very similar in where we are, aren't we? Having friends in the same boat certainly makes things a bit less lonely. A 2-person quad is a four-wheeled pedal vehicle that seats 2 people side by side. As Susie Shoes said, they are also called surreys. You can rent 4-person ones, too. The first time we tried them was on Center Island in Toronto Harbour. I remember our two girls making our son pedal them around for hours.

@SusieShoes, you are so good at putting things into perspective. Yes, I am on a good path--just jittery about how it will all turn out. Your comments made me extra-aware at PT today. I discovered two new things I did that could have increased swelling. I don't think it was the leg press per se, because I have been doing that successfully for quite a while now. I do it slowly in full control, and we adjust the weight each time depending on how my knee feels after a trial bend. However, last week the therapist added a small new twist to the press, which was to push out and then rock the foot once--lifting up heel and then toes. A small movement meant to strengthen ankles. Now that I think about it, I noticed some ankle oddities on our walks this weekend--some twinges, some looseness--that hadn't been there before. That could have thrown off my gait, which in turn could have encouraged some swelling. The other thing was adding the elliptical, which is a bit more strenuous than the bike. The knees seem much more engaged on this contraption. So today I didn't do the heel-toe thing on the leg press, and I did only a couple of minutes on the elliptical before switching to bike. We shall see; oh, yes; we shall see!
 
My husband gave me quite a "gift" yesterday. On our evening walk he casually said, "Oh, by the way, I think I know how you feel now--at least a little bit." He is quite an athletic person--swimming, running, racquetball--and also an avid gardener. In recent years, however, he has had to switch from one sport to another because of various injuries and aches and pains. In gardening, he has had to start using a kneeling pad, take longer breaks, etc. He is not a complainer, though, so these are things I just noticed on my own.

Anyway, on this walk, he said, "Yeah, last night I had quite a lot of pain in my left knee, and then my hip on the same side was kind of sore." He went on to explain that he couldn't get comfortable because he couldn't put one knee on top of the other lying on his side. He tossed and turned for a long time, even got up and took something, and he is usually a very sound sleeper. He said, "Wow, I can't believe that you have been doing this for all these months! I've had one night with bad sleep, and I'm wiped out!"

After thanking him for understanding, :loveshwr:I told him that if he wants to make it even more realistic, the next time he mows the yard and then walks with me, I will give him several cups of strong coffee just before bed, and then he will have a more complete picture! Of course, to do the entire bit, I would have to get under the covers with some sort of "zapper" and jab his sore knee every once in a while. :good-bad: Bwaaa-ha-haaaa! :snork:
 
It just occurred to me that maybe we could develop some sort of TKR Simulation Kit for significant others, family, and friends of the patient--like the pregnancy belly some fathers-to-be have tried out. It would be especially good for those TKR recipients who have less-than-fully-supportive people around them. (A recent poster on here who has a clueless live-in girlfriend springs to mind.). Included would be sandpaper for rubbing along the inside of the thigh until it burns and a cattle prod for "zingers."
 
:yikes::yikes::yikes: Well... um... you are entirely too creative. The good news is your husband has glimpsed a little of your world. Our world. I hope he doesn't need to enter it anytime soon. I'm sending wishes for his hip and knee to get better soon!
 
@Polkadot I am amazed at all you can do with your rom still in the 90s. I am at 105, but I still can't do a whole rotation on the bike. Hey, in the long run, a number is just a number. Being able to do the things you want to do is what is important, and I am looking forward to catching up with you.
 
Thanks, @OJ2! When you catch up to me, we will celebrate! At the slow pace I'm going, you are on target to surpass me very soon. I foresee a party--at least a virtual, wordy one--coming your way.
 
thank you Polkadot ~ i had never heard of that; just looked up on YouTube. looks like fun ~ does person #2 have to pedal? toronto islands were flooded this spring, didn't open until sometime in august. we usually go over there once in summer to yacht club for firm picnic but not this year. will have to check out those bikes. as teenagers, we used to go over and rent bicycles. enjoy the weekend with your family.

interesting that such a small change in the exercise routine on the leg press could cause the swelling. i sure hope your hubby doesn't have to go through a replacement of knee or hip. well if he does, you will be a good advisor and caretaker.
 
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