@DOCCUKE I have been reading your entire thread tonight and couldn't help but respond. You have been given wonderful information by everyone here, but I am so angry with your surgeon I could scream.
I'm already 6 months post-op from my first TKR, but there are numerous things in your thread that caught my eye......
I'm only 47, but I've had 11 knee surgeries in the last 20 yrs----2 of which were majorly invasive with complicated recoveries. I was a major athlete through my 20's,and I kept trying to run into my 30's. As my knees worsened in my late 30's, I was left with walking and weight lifting, but I was a die-hard gym rat 6 days a week!!! My surgical history is too long to go into, but I can summarize by saying my invasive 2016 surgery involved 2 yrs of PT which was extremely aggressive. I was told "no pain, no gain," and "You'll never walk normally again if you don't do A,B,C..." I bought every word and paid an awful price.
Unfortunately, I ended up with a knee full of adhesions from the overaggressive PT. I know it because the surgeon cut out the initial adhesions AND then did a manipulation under anesthesia at 11 and 12 weeks post op (the scar tissue procedures were 8 days apart). I now know I didn't need either of those, as my flexion was 115 and slowly increasing. I bought into the "keep working out intensely or else" advice though ...resulting in MORE adhesions forming and the initial ACI procedure completely failing...all because I did too much. By the time I had a TKR on that knee in May 2019, I had a knee full of adhesions again.
It bent to 125, but the pain, nerve damage, and scar tissue made my TKR recovery a nightmare. My TKR surgeon spent 45 minutes just removing scar tissue before moving on to hardware!
Thankfully I had found my TKR surgeon because of my 2015-2017 nightmare scenario. He has some hard and fast rules concerning TKR recovery----1) it IS possible to over-rehab a knee, so DON'T, 2) 5 minutes a day on the stationary bike is all a new TKR knee needs each day, as repeated bending keeps the joint inflamed. You already have good ROM, so the 5-minute rule would easy for you
3) less strength training is better in the early days. He had me hold off on ALL strength training until the 12 week mark....no weights at all. No lunges, no squats, no step-ups, no weird walking on stairs in odd directions, and most important of all: NO ONE forces the knee to bend or straighten. He didn't even want me walking much in those first 3 months because it added to the swelling/stiffness. In a nutshell, the message was there's no rush, and you won't lose anything. In fact, you'll gain a lot less pain. He is sick of PTs sending patients back to him during weeks 4-16 with MORE pain than they had at 3 wks post-op. This is why for some my age and with my surgical/rehab history, he won't even send us to PT because we know all we need to rehab a knee....and most of us won't force anything or overdo it on our own....only when pressured by PTs or when PTs give us outdated and fear-mongering advice.
Granted, my PT wasn't exactly on board at the beginning, but she honored the surgeon's wishes, and she saw the payoff 12 weeks later. I needed her for major soft tissue/massage issues with my IT band. My flexion was slow to come, but my extension was perfect by 10 wks. My flexion is still only 108, but I have a huge Baker's cyst behind the knee, so the swelling is impeding the motion----NOT adhesions. If I do nothing for a few days, I get an extra 10 degrees of bending.
It's just hard to sit for 3 days straight!!
Anyway---I know what it's like to think the surgeons and PTs know everything. I also know what it's like to live with their bad, incorrect advice. I really don't think they know how wrong they have done some people. That's why I researched the heck out of all this before my TKR. Bonesmart was a huge part of that.
Best of wishes to you and good job advocating for yourself!!
--Lisa