Hello all! I met with my OS yesterday and I feel so much better about my slow healing knee. Even the long car ride was a little easier. I didn’t start to get uncomfortable until about half way home.
OS did not make me feel like the PAs in the office (like it was my fault I can’t bend my leg). He was a bit concerned that I still have so much swelling and said the swelling could very well be limiting my bend (duh, haven’t I been saying that all along?) I am getting some blood work done to rule out infection in the joint being a reason for swelling, but he did say a small group of TKR patients just swell longer for unknown reason.
I asked about doing a course of steroids to see if it knocked down the inflammation. He said that he had never prescribed steroids for swelling and was hesitant to do so because of the immunosuppressive response, in case we were looking at infection deep in the joint. His concern made sense, so I didn’t push. He also said he could draw fluid from the knee to check for infection, but didn’t recommend it for reducing the swelling. I agree and don’t really want to put a needle in this knee unless absolutely necessary.
I asked about changing my anti-inflammatory rx to celebrex, as I had taken it a couple decades ago with success and stopped taking it when I had an insurance change. He was hesitant to prescribe it based on an increased cardiac risk compared to other NSAIDs, but agreed to let me give it a try. I tolerate nsaids and have taken them on and off for more than half my life since my original knee injury.
OS was not as focused on pushing the MUA until we can rule out infection being the reason for swelling. He said usually he does them around 3 months, but was ok with wait 4-5 months, just not wait for 10 months and expect benefit from it, if I chose to do it. He said, since I am bending around 90 already it might not help much and if we did it and it caused more swelling, it would not benefit me much either. I finally felt heard. THIS is what I have been saying for 8 weeks. So fingers crossed the bloodwork shows no sign of infection, and I will have a follow up telephone visit (yay!) in about 3 weeks to see if I’m still improving.