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TKR Rehab Starts now !

Thanks Susie. I’d managed to decipher some of them but couldn’t work them all out. I’ll have a read through them.
 
Chillimac said:
Has anyone on here had manipulation surgery? If so, how did it go, how was the pain after and to what degree was ROM improved?
I'll endeavour to get him to read the replies and posts on here this time around.
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Why not simply suggest that he join the forum himself? Then he could get information first hand, rather than going through an intermediary. It would also be easier for him to ask questions and receive meaningful feedback.
 
I suggested it Alex but he's a technophobe! He'll happily admit he doesn't know how to turn a computer on and will never own a smart phone!!!!
 
In that case, this isn't going to work, is it?
Chillimac said:
I'll endeavour to get him to read the replies and posts on here this time around.
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This forum isn't accessable to people who don't have computers or smartphones. I wish him well, but there isn't much we can do to advise people offline.
 
Chillimac said:
I had a conversation with a friend last night who had a TKR 29th December 2017 and despite all the advice given from the surgeon, Physios and the information I gave him that I'd learned from my previous surgery as well as pointing him in the direction of this fantastic site, he chose to ignore the majority of it and is now having to go back in to have manipulation surgery. His ROM is very low, he says he can hardly bend the knee (I suspect he has just sat around in the weeks after his surgery rather than actively trying to use the new knee) and still has a lot of pain
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Chris,
On here, we try not to talk about other people, so please can we confine the discussions to your own recovery?

You don't know all the circumstances of another person's recovery and you can't possibly know everything about their knee.
You can offer advice to a friend, but it's their right to choose whether or not to accept that advice.

What you are doing is working well for your knee, but it may not be appropriate for someone else's knee.
 
OK Celle. I wasn't aware of that position. I apologise. I'll endeavour to get my friend to get into the 21st century so he can have a look on here for himself.
 
You read my mind that’s what I’ve spent the afternoon doing
 
My second solo gym session yesterday morning. Once again I managed my usual workout, I even managed to use some free weights but considerably less than I would normally use without any problem. Onto the bike for a 7 minute ride, lowest possible torque setting alternating between forward and reverse rotation at 1 minute intervals and I could definitely feel a difference from my first visit on Tuesday. The knee felt stronger and less ungainly, no pain whatsoever during or after the session. Straight home, elevate, ice and rest and this morning no adverse reactions.
Fingers crossed after I see my physio next Thursday, I’ll have had another 2 gym sessions by then, if all goes well she’ll allow me to try swimming as well as upping my knee routine a little bit.
 
The Physios compile a report which goes to my surgeon which he’ll evaluate at my 6 weeks check on the 26th April so I really need to follow it through until then Sistersinhim. She may however say I can do my own if I’m far enough advanced and she’s happy with my progress.
I tried something new today. I gave warm therapy a go as against icing after exercising and found it to be just as good. I’m not getting any swelling after exercising so warmed a wheat bag in the microwave to try it. I think I might alternate with both now, see how they go.
 
Chillimac said:
The Physios compile a report which goes to my surgeon which he’ll evaluate at my 6 weeks check on the 26th April so I really need to follow it through until then Sistersinhim. She may however say I can do my own if I’m far enough advanced and she’s happy with my progress.
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It's entirely your choice whether you go to PT or not., even if your therapist does have to file a report for your surgeon. It's your knee and you are the only one who has the right to say what happens to it.
Your surgeon and your PT can advise, but you can choose whether or not to accept that advice.
Saying no to therapy - am I allowed to?
CONSENT: what it means and how it can be used

If you tell your surgeon what work you are doing in the gym, he/she surely can't object to you stopping PT, especially as your knee is doing so well.
 
I agree Celle I could if I wanted to but I’d rather use the experience and expertise I’m given to my advantage. There may be something I miss or some treatment they recommend that might be beneficial. It’s only a couple more weeks so I’ll stick it out until then.
 
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Reactions: pdx
I had my staples out 2 weeks ago after my TKR but since then had been able to feel something slightly protruding from one of the staple sites. It wasn't irritating me so I just left it, thoughts were it might be a hard piece of scab and it'd disappear eventually. It didn't and seemed to get slightly larger as time went on. When I got my wife to have a closer look she said it looked like a piece of staple and it was working its own way out. By this morning it had come out enough that it was catching on my clothes and starting to irritate so I thought enough is enough, grabbed some tweezers and gave it a gentle tug. Surprisingly around 2 inches of stitch came out, and there was definitely more to come but I stopped at that and trimmed it off. I'm wondering, as this stitching was definitely coming from under the skin, (a) why was it there in the first place if my wound was stapled. (b) if there are stitches, aren't they supposed to dissolve over a period of a couple of weeks?
I'm not sure whether I should get in touch with my doctor or just leave it and see what happens.
 
@Chillimac you will notice that I have merged your two threads together as we prefer that members in recovery only have one thread.

This is for three reasons:
1. if you keep starting new threads, you miss the posts others have left you in the old threads
2. it often ends up that information is unnecessarily repeated
3. it's best if we can keep all your recovery story in one place so it's easily accessed if we need to advise you.

Please keep all your questions and updates on this thread. If you would like a new thread title just give a shout.
 
Chillimac said:
I'm wondering, as this stitching was definitely coming from under the skin, (a) why was it there in the first place if my wound was stapled.
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Only the top layer of the skin was stapled. All the layers of skin (and fat, fascia, etc.) underneath were closed, layer by layer, with dissolvable sutures. My OS explained ahead of time about this so I would feel confident in bending my knees, i.e. no way was my incision going to open on me.

Chillimac said:
(b) if there are stitches, aren't they supposed to dissolve over a period of a couple of weeks?
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Dissolvable stitches sometimes don't quite dissolve before the body makes an executive decision to push one of them out. It's still dissolving, and the body is still doing its thing and trying to get rid of a foreign object. One way or the other, that stitch is a goner. One of my incisions spit out a stitch -- it was more like a pimple that expelled a tiny hair-like suture -- a few weeks after surgery. This is a common experience.

Chillimac said:
I'm not sure whether I should get in touch with my doctor or just leave it and see what happens.
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I'd call the surgeon and let him know. Mine told me to dab mine with hydrogen peroxide a couple times a day and call him if it got red or filled with pus. Neither thing happened; the stitch just came out one day and the pimple went away. You tugged on yours, though. Your surgeon should know that and might want you to do something different. Best to err on the side of caution whenever it comes to incisions.
 
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I’ll dab it with antiseptic SusieShoes and keep an eye on it. On closer inspection it came through one of the staple holes. I told you I was an impatient patient, I just had to give it a little tug lol.
 
@Chillimac I did not understand how the closing of the incision works before I had the surgery. One of the articles here on bonesmart explains how there are two layers of stitching before you even get to the surface of staples oe glue or whatever the preference of the OS is. The lower layers are closed up with suture material which is designed to dissolve and the body eliminates it, as Susie explained. When my suture material started to pop up on my skin surface, I was so scared. I didn’t know what it was, and I was sure it was an infection of some kind. Thankfully the explanation was to be found on this site. I don’t know where to find the link for this article, but perhaps one of the advisors has it. I was told not to mess with the stitches as they popped up, but to just let them do their thing. I agree with Susie that a quick call to your OS would be a good idea just to let them know and get their input. And I have often thought that a patience pill should be invented to cure impatience, as it is one of my biggest characteristics. :heehee: Hang in there!
 
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