My knees are stiff, and they are tight. Every time I have to do PT (2 sessions daily), I think I won't be able to do it, but I manage it better than I expected, and my "performance" is improving. The warm up is 30 heel pumps, 30 seated leg lifts and "marching" in my chair. Then, I do three sets each of 10 on each leg lying down exercises including heel slides, leg raises (with legs over a bolster), quad sets (pressing down), glute sets (contracting and holding glutes), leg raises (lying on back raising one leg at a time), and side leg raises. In the afternoon, I do standing exercises including front and back leg raises, side leg lifts, knee raises (like "marching" again), heel raises (lifting foot up and back toward buttocks), knee flexes (relax one knee at a time and contract quad and hold), and toe raises (standing on toes and holding). This is interspersed with bouts of walking with the walker, 2 canes, and a single cane. Since I am going home tomorrow, they had me practice walking with one cane and a laundry basket and one cane and a "gallon of milk" (9 lb. weight).
There is also some sort of a bike thing that counts steps - 750 per day.
It is tiring, no doubt. My knees feel tight, but not impossible. I felt like I was getting worse on the heel slides, but my stamina has improved and my range is improving every day. The PT is a lot of work, but that's what I am here to do. I do about an hour in the morning, then about 30 minutes of OT. This afternoon's PT session was almost 90 minutes - but a lot of that was walking.
I do feel like the incision is pulling, but the therapist says that it's actually my quad activating and working (since that's the muscle that was most affected around the incision site).
Another patient who had her two knees done separately said that the pain will be different on different days - both the amount and location. And then one day, it just stops hurting.
We were trying a "bridge" over a bolster, but that was too intense, so we have knocked that out of the rotation for now. I felt those mostly in the incision and in the backs of my knees - which I understand is the hamstring insertion(s). I hope to be able to work up to those, but they are not in the cards for now.
I go home tomorrow, so I will continue doing most of this program on my own until I get into outpatient PT next week. I am still taking the pain meds around the clock, by the clock, and icing before and after every PT session.
United States
