@Toyon,
Welcome to BoneSmart, glad you joined us!
stressing the flexion of the knee! I am at 90 degrees and one says that I must work much harder, that it will be extremely painful. She even told me to do my home exercises 5 times a day because 3 times wasn't working.
I've followed directions and am in a lot of pain.
90 degrees at 3 weeks is fantastic! No need for you to work on ROM. What is blocking your ROM is swelling, all that pushing and shoving is increasing your pain, inflammation, and swelling, all of which will block your ROM. As your swelling goes down your ROM will reveal itself, as it has been there all along.
Saying no to therapy - am I allowed to?
In the early days less is more, and pain = no gain.
Ask your PT to help you with finding ways to reduce pain with ice, elevation, and TENS, gait training, gentle exercises, balance, and how to pace yourself so you do not cause additional irritation to your knee.
TKR: work “smarter” and not “harder”
Right now all you need is the natural activity you do around your house and some gentle activities you do yourself. We recommend the two following activities.
Heel slides and how to do them and
Extension: how to estimate it and ways to improve it .
What kind of PT/exercises are you doing? How much and how often? (and
detailed details would be appreciated, please! Reps, sets and session and all that)
Here is your copy of the Knee Recovery Guidelines, the articles are short and will not take long to read.
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:
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:
The importance of managing pain after a TKR and the pain chart
Swollen and stiff knee: what causes it?
Energy drain for TKRs
Elevation is the key
Ice to control pain and swelling
Heel slides and how to do them properly
Chart representation of TKR recovery
Healing: how long does it take?
Post op blues is a reality - be prepared for it
Sleep deprivation is pretty much inevitable - but what causes it?
There are also some cautionary articles here
Myth busting: no pain, no gain
Myth busting: the "window of opportunity" in TKR
Myth busting: on getting addicted to pain meds
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.