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TKR PolarBear60's Stryker Triathalon Journey (Right)

Congrats on your 7-week report! You're doing wonderful! :wow:
 
Oh, I am jealous of the distance you can walk! Lady Mary refuses to go that far. She is such an aristocrat. I can't wait to get her walking farther. You are doing so very well. It sounds like you are having an interesting life.
 
Eight-week update.

Lower back pain has invaded (it hit at five weeks last year). It was mild yesterday but got worse today. It may be related to the sit-to-stand work I did in PT yesterday, but I'm not sure. It was starting to hurt before I went to PT, but PT may have aggravated it. On the bright side, I only scheduled one PT session this week, and it's done. I have a progress eval next Monday, so we won't be doing much PT then. I tried icing the back yesterday afternoon, and it didn't help, so I'm trying the heating pad as I type. We have rain this week, so people are speculating that may be impacting me, and I concede it's possible but not likely. On the "bright" side, it usually goes away in a day or two, so I hope to be feeling better soon.

Stairs are typically getting easier. I am still using both hands to provide support up and down and to ease the burden on the knees as I focus on form.

Yesterday in PT, we worked on (at my request) sitting and standing from a low chair. Ideally, I would be able to almost sit then return to a standing position, but I couldn't do that. I was able to improve my ability to lower myself onto the chair, and I really felt muscles waking up as I worked on standing without lunging. After finishing that, I was tired but pleased with my overall improvement. The student PT worked with me on this and was very encouraging. I'm a little sore today but not unexpectedly so after two sets of ten (they prefer three sets of ten for all exercises, but we all agreed two sets was my limit yesterday). I wouldn't need this is my husband wouldn't be dilly dallying around about replacing our toilets (which are insanely low). I use a riser on the downstairs potty, but the upstairs one doesn't have one. At least it isn't excruciating to stand from it anymore, but I really have to concentrate to get the muscles to fire for me to stand. My goal is to be able to get up from a low seat without having to think about it.

That and doing stairs "normally" are my PT goals, and I'm getting closer. I have some pool exercises for when we are staying in a motel at the end of next week, and one of those is squats, which I know from experience will help quite a bit when I do them in the pool.

I'm not a comfy puppy today, but the knees are doing well. With the rain and several other things, I haven't gotten out for a walk since Friday, but I did complete one mile for the first time in a long, long time on Friday, so I'm on track for that goal.
 
Mostly good, tho sorry about the back pain.hope it was from the pt work. Lets hope it eases today.

Ughh I feel your pain on low toilets. We have all "right height" American Standard toilets, as I could no way get off a low or std height one. I rarely use public bathrooms because of that. Hope he gets to that soon.
 
It sounds like you are doing well...Low toilet seats are very uncomfortable, when we stayed at the beach in July the seat in our apartment was very low, by the end of the week my ROM had improved tremendously, hahaha

That is great that you are able to walk a mile. It is so hot here that I can't go for walks, I concentrate on the bike.
 
It sounds like things are going well:). It is amazing what a couple of inches will do for a toilet. The comment on your scar.....as my plastic surgeon told me..we are going for function not looks. And I agree:)


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I installed a new higher standard toilet when I moved into my condo. I thought the one there was insanely low. I have difficulty with low toilets. Some so-called handicapped toilets in public places just put a bar next to a low toilet. That should be considered non-compliant with the law.
It's still a challenge to get up from my higher one but I wanted to get rid of the raised medical toilet.
 
I'm with you, mamazipp. He has to see it with his own eyes and the home improvement stores don't stock them. And he wants something that will look "right" with our 116-year-old house (I always want to make an outhouse quip when he says that, but sometimes, it's better to keep one's mouth shut).


Jean

RTKR (Stryker Triathlon): 21 June 2016
LTKR (Stryker Triathlon): 21 April 2015
Right Knee Arthroscopy: 25 July 2006
Left Knee Arthroscopy: 10 February 2005
 
Overall, good 8-week report! Keep in mind that you really are progressing when you can define your own goals and work towards them. Sounds like PT will help you get there. How's your swelling?

I'm also having back pain - it's due to sciatica. My PT's receptionist is calling OS to get a prescription faxed over so I can see PT for that as well. Heat and hamstring stretches are the only things so far that are helping.

How are you sleeping?
 
Hey, TML! Swelling is consistent at 1 1/2 - 2" larger than my other knee. My left knee was consistent for several months, too, until at around the 11-month point I noticed the swelling was gone, and I had actual knee contours! I figure something similar will happen for this knee.

Every time I try to get out of a chair today, I think this may have been related to my sit to stand work -- or at least aggravated by it. I'm walking better today and can bend over to pick something up with relative ease, but movement involving the lower back is tentative at best. I have found heat is more helpful than cold in this instance.

Ordinarily, I have been sleeping well, but last night, I couldn't get comfortable in bed. I tend to turn back and forth from one side to the other throughout the night, so lower back pain makes this excruciating. As a result, I decided to come downstairs to the recliner and heating pad. My CPAP was upstairs, so I didn't sleep well due to that. I went back upstairs this morning, laid down, and slipped the CPAP on and took a one hour nap before getting up to face the day.

I've spent most of the day resting in my recliner streaming Olympic basketball on my Roku. I have used the lift chair feature of this chair a time or two. Very helpful for back troubles.
 
The back problems hit me too. The heating pad did the trick for me. I went to a chiropractor who did some deep massage as well as adjustments which have seemed to help me. I was offered PT and/or chiropractor by my PCP and I went to a chiropractor that he suggested. I hope you are able to get some better sleep tonight and your back is feeling better.
 
Thank you, Marian. I think it's coming along, and I hope to feel much better tomorrow. As I attempt to stand, I am beginning to feel the muscles try to fire, so maybe I'm progressing to that "effortless" ability to stand from a seated position that I so long for.
 
So many parts of our body seem to be impacted by this surgery. I feel like I need a complete overhaul! :heehee:
 
When they say major surgery, they mean it. It effects everything from our hair to our toes and everything in between including our emotions and memory. I was amazed at how my appetite and taste were effected.
 
Talking about hair, I've lost all my curl and waves. :sad:
 
Thankfully, the back is feeling much better today. Im lucky that it only seems to bother me for a day or two, then it fades.


Jean

RTKR (Stryker Triathlon): 21 June 2016
LTKR (Stryker Triathlon): 21 April 2015
Right Knee Arthroscopy: 25 July 2006
Left Knee Arthroscopy: 10 February 2005
 
Jean, I'm not sure what is going on with your back, but in my case my PT was able to "fix" my back problem by doing an adjustment to put things right. Maybe you can talk to your PT about that next time you go. As RoseAnn Roseanna Danna (sp?) used to say, "If it's not one thing, it's another thing!". Wishing you comfort and relief!
 
Week 10 update. Week 9 got superseded due to the forum outage, but it was more of the same.

After a mostly uncomfortable week last week, this week feels different in a good way. Let me backtrack a bit. I had severe lower back pain for most of week 8. Week 9 was okay. I had a PT assessment on Monday, August 22nd. My PT was thrilled, saying my assessment on the paper portion far exceeded his goals for my progress. My right knee measured at 120 flexion and 0 extension, so it's already as good as it's expected to get. My PT broached the subject of what I wanted to do, and I explained that I wanted to spread my few remaining sessions out over a longer period of time (I can get more authorized, but we both agreed I probably don't need more sessions -- I just need more time), so my next session is scheduled for September 22. He assured me I could email any questions between now and then as well as schedule another appointment before then if I wanted.

Last week, we loaded a trailer (we were going to load two trailers, but we discovered we didn't have enough stuff to warrant two trailers) and headed to an auto swap meet 50 miles south of here to set up and peddle our wares. We were quite pleased to find new homes for some bulky items we no longer needed (many of which came in a building we bought several years ago) as well as smaller items. Every year we swear we're going to look through our stuff for new inventory, and every year we put it off until the last minute and never really identify new stuff to go. We did do a better job of loading the trailer to make it easier to set up when we got to the site, though.

My husband and I were both a little sore and tired even after our "take it easy" approach. We made it through the weekend comfortably, and this week, my aches and pains complaints seem to be less than they were last week. Week 9 for this knee was marked by a slight stiffness when straightening my knee. Bending was fine. Most discomfort then and now is on the outer edges in the "numb" area. Every week the aches are in a different place, and I know this is completely normal part of the healing process.

I'm making progress on stairs, both up and down, and the low seating concern. My lower back and right hip is settling down. I slept mostly ache-free last night. Both knees have slightly different achy areas. Very minor in the left knee -- it seems to appreciate the help the new right knee is giving it, and both knees are beginning to learn to work together. I had no trouble driving to reach our destination for this weekend. I don't anticipate any troubles with the three-hour drive to San Antonio planned for September 11th. It's right at the three-month point, which is when I drove to San Antonio for the first time with the left knee. I did that with ice packs on, and I don't think I'll need to do that this time.
 
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