Become an Insider

TKR LTKR on June 23

That mantra is the correct one. After five months, my house could do with a good scrub, but I have got adept at ignoring it. And don’t even mention the garden! With temperatures at over 40 today, I would far rather go to the ACd gym to exercise , and not sweat around the house clearing up dust that will reappear in a few days anyway.
 
Jo Wo said:
Coming up on 6 weeks Wednesday. Rom is now 117/0. I was stuck between 105 and 112 for a few weeks. Stride is lengthening and feels more secure. Only using cane when tired. Biggest challenge is keeping activity level in check. The PT agrees: only time will get the last swelling down, and it's the swelling limiting the rom.
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Just found this forum last week. My husband had his TKR 6/21/21. He is at 6 weeks today. ROM is 108/5 and is disappointed where he is at. Sounds like he is right on track with alot of you out there. Off pain meds and cane. Can ride the bike for 5-8 min a day. I keep telling him baby steps.
 
6 week checkup went well. xrays look good, scar healing well, doc eyeballed my flex at nearly 120 and was happy. It's a 30 minute ride so I took a gel ice pack wrapped in a towel in a cooler bag and it was just cold enough to soothe on the ride home.
 
Trek2021 said:
Jo Wo said:
Coming up on 6 weeks Wednesday. Rom is now 117/0. I was stuck between 105 and 112 for a few weeks. Stride is lengthening and feels more secure. Only using cane when tired. Biggest challenge is keeping activity level in check. The PT agrees: only time will get the last swelling down, and it's the swelling limiting the rom.
Click to expand...
Just found this forum last week. My husband had his TKR 6/21/21. He is at 6 weeks today. ROM is 108/5 and is disappointed where he is at. Sounds like he is right on track with alot of you out there. Off pain meds and cane. Can ride the bike for 5-8 min a day. I keep telling him baby steps.
Click to expand...
Your ROM is 108/5? Is that 5 fingers under knee with straight leg?
I had lowered the seat on my stationary bikes to get more flex 120. But my knee lost went from 1 finger to 2. Two steps forward & one step back? I'm 8 weeks out on Thursday. Thanks
 
I forgot to mention this: I asked the doc to look at the xray of both knees and tell me if he thought the right knee would need replacement. He said it appears to be holding up well, good joint space. It never had the severe injury like the left one sustained 40 years ago. I do all the pt exercises on both legs so that should help keep it healthy.

I slept well last night, ir gets more and more comfortable to do some side sleeping.
 
The main problem with pain at this point is down the medial side into my lower leg. I discussed it with the doctor and he said it could be the bone bruising that was there before surgery from the swiss cheese medial meniscus, and the additional trauma from surgery. But I think I aggravated it by consciously striving to improve my gait scores with the one step app. I let my onestep pt know I will put aside the app for a while. If I can get rid of this pain I should make more progress toward reducing the tylenol and advil which are currently at half the daily maxima.

I find if I try to walk faster and with a longer stride I do come down harder on my postop leg. I thought about what type of walking I want to resume, and its local walking: a steep driveway leading to another short hill of a street--that requires shorter stride on the downhill. walking on my patio or front walk: step carefully on the uneven bricks and don't fall on the rolling acorns. Walk on the level part of the lawn: slowly and carefully to avoid chipmunk holes and deer scat. Walk on gravel or woodland trails in the nature center. None of this requires speed or a longer stride.

Give me a score and I will work to improve it, that's my personality. So I may check on gait weekly with the app to see how my symmetry is coming along, and my daily walks will be walks that move me toward getting my old life back, not walks to improve an arbitrary scoring system.

I will rely more on my pt for visual analysis of my gait.
 
I did my step overs at pt really well yesterday, no hands on the way up and by the third step, no hands on the way down. I took no oxy afterwards, and used the ice machine throughout the afternoon. I walked downhill to the mailbox, and a shorter distance to the first stop sign with my poles. No tibial pain. I skipped my bedtime tylenol and slept well. All in all, a great day, and I think my decision to stop trying to improve speed and stride length has been the right choice for me.
 
Did the aldi trip with my husband. 20% of what I put in the cart was not on my list, stuff I didn't remember I needed til I saw it in the store. I sat in the car with ice pack on knee while he checked put and bagged. I am choosy about what is worth spending time on my knee. It's like there is only so much good knee time in a day, use it wisely.
 
Walking on an incline can be more challenging at first.
 
6 and a half weeks: cutting back on tylenol and nsaids and taking it easy today.
Little victories:
I mostly use both legs on the stairs now for up and down, still with the cane and railing though.
recumbent bike for 25 minutes, gradually scooting the seat closer, yesterday I reached the maximum forward position for our bike.
Sleeping better, can roll easily to sleep on either side.
i am keeping walking and standing to short intervals to make sure that tibia pain stays away.
 
Excellent work on the recumbent!
 
You are doing really well. I’m impressed!
Your Aldi trip report made me smile, that was me a while back, deciding what to do with the small window of daily “good knee time”, and piling stuff in the trolley.
It’s a really great breakthrough when, not only does the window get wide enough for a decent excursion, but you get a second one in the afternoon after a lunchtime rest and ice!
 
Thanks @Ghostpipe, I long for those days of dual outings.
I just spent two days in the hospital getting checked for palpitations that arose over the weekend. Because I am 7 weeks out from surgery they also did tests for blood clots. I have some benign premature atrial contractions and no heart muscle damage and no pulmonary embolisms or dvt issues on the tests they did. Will followup with cardiologist.

Glad to be home.
 
Sorry to hear about the heart palpitations and glad to hear that there is no heart damage. What a rough two days.
 
That must have been scary. My first thought would have been blood clots. Good that you seem to be in the clear. Good luck with the cardiologist.
 
thanks @Raindancer. I tried to do my leg lifts, quadsets, sit to stands and walk often while I was on the telemetry ward. @Ghostpipe it was really the clot risk that made me stop trying to ignore them. The test for PE was fascinating to say the least and it was a long encounter with the ultrasound team who carefully imaged both legs from groin to ankle searching for clots. I got lovenox shots in the belly both days as well.
 
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