PKR Maddening Restless Leg

T Funkus

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Hello,
I am post op of 8 weeks from a lateral partial knee replacement. I am now off all narcotics.
I am experiencing severe restless leg syndrome and am not able to sleep. This started about 4 weeks ago. The narcotics did help a bit. Now that I am off the heavy meds there is no relief.
Is this normal? If so, is it Permanent or does it eventually go away?
it is totally exhausting and maddening.
 
:welome: to BoneSmart.

It will go away, it's just the body reacting to a major assault. You might visit your normal doctor, perhaps there's a med that might help.

In the meantime:

Knee Recovery: The Guidelines

1. Don’t worry: Your body will heal all by itself. Relax, let it, don't try and hurry it, don’t worry about any symptoms now, they are almost certainly temporary

2. Control discomfort:
rest
ice
take your pain meds by prescription schedule (not when pain starts!)​

3. Do what you want to do BUT
a. If it hurts, don't do it and don't allow anyone - especially a physical therapist - to do it to you​
b. If your leg swells more or gets stiffer in the 24 hours after doing it, don't do it again.​

4. PT or exercise can be useful BUT take note of these

5. At week 4 and after you should follow this

6. Access these pages on the website

The Recovery articles:

There are also some cautionary articles here


We try to keep the forum a positive and safe place for our members to talk about their questions or concerns and to report successes with their joint replacement surgery.

While members may create as many threads as they like in a majority of BoneSmart's forums, we ask that each member have only one recovery thread. This policy makes it easier to go back and review history before providing advice.
 
Many of us get what we can "zingers" which feel like electric shocks as the nerves reconnect, so the leg jerks. This goes away fairly soon

If it's not this, and is the real McCoy, there seems to be many lifestyle changes and/or medications to sort it.


I notice that one of the recommended meds make you sleep, so that's a double benefit.
 
Hello @T Funkus, welcome to Bonesmart. Please tell us your exact surgery date and which knee it was. We will add it to your signature for you.

I had the RLS for a while, too. My doctor suggested a use a heating pad on my quads, (not on the knee!), right before bed. It did seem to help some.
 
been awake since 4am, my leg is doing its dance (nerve zings, but oh so like RLS) I'm day 13 post op
would be nice if my calf could do it thing during waking hours, but nooooooooo.

You are not alone
 
We have an extensive library of informative articles right here on the Bonesmart forums, and here’s the article we have on Restless Leg Syndrome:

Here’s a link to the whole list of articles in the Bonesmart Library. Lots of topics there!
 
PKR right
Hello,
It has been 14 weeks since my lateral pkr and I am still experiencing restless leg syndrome. This has been on going since about week 7.
Is this normal? I can not get any answers from my surgeon- he skirts and deflects most of my questions or concerns.
His response to my restless leg question was: I don’t know anything about restless legs.
I also have pain under the knee cap - feels like a bunch of pieces of cartilage or something- anyone else experiencing this?
 
@T Funkus you will notice that I have merged your two threads together as we prefer that members in recovery only have one thread.

This is for three reasons:
1. if you keep starting new threads, you miss the posts others have left you in the old threads
2. it often ends up that information is unnecessarily repeated
3. it's best if we can keep all your recovery story in one place so it's easily accessed if we need to advise you.

Please keep all your questions and updates on this thread. If you would like a new thread title just give a shout.

Sounds to me that you might need to get back on some sort of pain medication. Can you call your family doctor and discuss this? Have you tried taking Tylenol?
 
I had RLS too. My OS suggested heat on my thighs. It helped a little. It went away after a while. Through trial and error, I found that the Benadryl I was using to help me sleep was causing it. Are there things you can stop taking to see if the RLS improves?

We have this in our library: http://bonesmart.org/forum/threads/restless-legs-following-knee-replacement-surgery.13454/

Please tell us what your surgery was, when it was and which knee is was. I will add this to your signature. Knowing this will help us advise you better.
 
Hello, @T Funkus .
Please tell us the full date of your knee replacement. You have been asked this several times.
You see, it's no good just telling us how many weeks post-op you are, because that means we have to count back each time, to get the date.

Once we know the actual date, we'll be able to put it in a signature for you and the signature will appear at the bottom of every post you make.
 
I'm 5.5months post surgery and like you the last couple of nights my legs come alive literally moments after I switch off the lights to go asleep the harder I try to keep them still the more they want to move haha resulting in a row between DH and I :rotfl: with myself giving up on any idea of sleep and retreating to the lounge :tiredwheel: no pain at all just twitchy jerky legs I've tried heat pads all they do is make me hotter so given up on them so maybe I'm lacking vitamins or something so following your post with interest.
Thankfully as work for the time being has been cancelled I can catch up on rest during the day although I'm not good at daytime naps ...
Stay safe and hopefully you too will soon get a good peaceful nights sleep xx
 
@ T Funkus and @Sara61

For me, it is almost always food that triggers this, specifically sugar. I eat fruit no later than lunch. I try to eat no sugar, not even high sugar vegetables (peas, corn, some squashes).
Increasing potassium by adding some banana at breakfast helped me, as did increasing hydration.
After the surgery, I always walked a little bit before bed, massaged with arnica (see @luvcats about magnesium oil), and often put a lotion or cream with lidocaine in it on right after getting in bed, then iced and elevated. If the jumpiness woke me up, I got up and walked a bit, massaged more lidocaine, went back to bed (iced and elevated again then usually).
Tramadol (even a tiny dose) right after the surgery seemed to worsen this in me, and it took a long time to get that out of my system.
Recently, I've added magnesium glyconate tablets. Too soon to tell.
 
Many of the pain meds have it listed as a side effect.

Like @marieltha I find that keeping the carbs very low in the afternoon makes a huge difference to me and how much I twitch. I also find that for me keeping up my magnesium levels makes a big difference and I'm a huge fan of magnesium oil which I apply directly to my legs. I get much better absorption with the oil. Too much oral magnesium can have 'digestive consequences'.

I had diagnosed Restless Leg long before my surgeries and take prescribed medication for it, but I did notice surges where it got a lot worse as I tapered off pain meds.

But if it wasn't a problem before surgery, you can expect it to go away again as your healing progresses.
 
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I too have RLS. I had a TKA on Jan. 7, 2020. Since about the 1st wk. after Surg. my big toe on my surg. leg would slowly flex up on it's on--sometimes my entire surg. knee would involuntarily flex which was pain 10+. I called my OS at about wk 12 and she told me I shouldn't have it any more and I needed to call my Fam. Dr. for an appt. After I read Jamie's info about RLS and the paper she sited in it, I realized RSL is fairly common post-surf. TKA--which I didn't know.

My question is--is this a permanent condition? or will it go away with more healing time?
 
My RLS went away after a few months, though it started getting better before then.
 
My OS suggested drinking some tonic water around 4 oz before going to bed. Once I started doing this it did help. Also if you are vitamin B deficient this can also cause restless legs, so I also have just started taking this Monday. I find the regular tonic water tastes better (it still tastes awful) than the diet tonic water.

I hope you find something, it is hard enough to sleep without the extra's added in.
 

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