Become an Insider

PKR Right knee 9/24...so far so good...

Status
Not open for further replies.
Thanks so much for your input. I am at Brigham and Womens with Dr. Minas who is one of the Docs that designed the Confirmis. The practice did all of my surgeries. They send us home with an ice Machine (I now have 7 of them) and they do wonders. . . . .I am not overweight at all but do need to work on the leg before surgery due to atrophy . . .. .
 
I don't know why, but the Ice machine was a complete wash with me, never seemed to get me cold enough or a big enough pad (I got the big knee pad). Consequently, I have a whole freezer full of icepacks. I think having good muscle tone in the leg is important. I also think that one of my advantages here was that mine was an injury, I didn't have years of getting too this point, and I had not had any sort of ligament damage.

If you don't have a wedge pillow already, it was the best 40 bucks I spent. While the Docs would call me overweight, I prefer to think of it as expressing my genetic heritage. My father, grandfather and I put in a lineup at the same age all look the same. I am in pretty good shape, was walking 10 miles a day before the accident.
 
Well, first day of the trip, and the road to the hotel was paved with good intentions, but...

At 30 minutes into the trip I got an emergency call from a client, pulled off and fired up the computer, and spend an hour getting the right hardware on the way. That then put me running late, and I just pushed through the other 3 hours to the destination without stopping. Knee was a bit stiff at that point. 30 minutes of TENS got thing loosened up and then dinner. and bed. Actually slept through the night with a 10 minute wakeup at 3:30am for pills.

Were I to guess, I would say that the strange bed was a bit more uncomfortable than mine, and that kept me moving a bit more during the night, which kept me from noticing the knee that much. TENsing as I write and then off to breakfast. Looks like the start of a great day...
 
I have three different types of ice machines. One is a flat knee bladder which was useless, the other ones have a very thick bladder that tightens a bit as the water circulates they are the BEST.
 
Well, 3 days into the trip, on the way to my Father's now. Knee is doing fairly well, although I have hit some rough spots in the wild, mostly having to do with sidewalks that vary in surface height without being obvious about it. I have mostly been sleeping through the night now, but the knee is a bit stiff (no recumbent bike). Will try doing some exercises this evening. Besides that, travel has been not much of a problem so far. Have had a couple of times on rough ground that the knee has taken off in odd directions, I suspect because the muscles aren't as strong as they need to be.

The TENs machine has been apparently helping a pretty fair amount with pain control. Definitely going to continue with it.
 
The weekend with my father was great as always. I have been blessed by having the best father in the world, a man who wanted a son and who wanted to avoid some of the issues that he had with his father. The results have been my life, and I wouldn't change a minute of it.

The knee, on the other hand, decided after a couple of days of letting me sleep through the night that it would reassert itself on the subject of 3AM. At my Dad's I was stuck in the guest bedroom, which was a full-sized bed, so not a lot of room to move around. The wedge got sent to the floor at 3 and while I slept some on and off after the 3am pills, it wasn't a full on sleep. I think I made a mistake by not TENsing or Icing while I was up, thinking I would get back to sleep, and consequently lost more than if I had spent 30 minutes on the machine or with ice.

I have missed having the recumbent bike, but I think this hotel has one that I will be using. I would like to try swimming, but not available at any of the hotels I have stayed at on the trip (all outdoor pools). Driving hasn't been an issue, walking in the wild has been a bit, but gets better. I find I am using the cane less as a load splitter and more a steadying device. This is, I believe, the normal progression, and I see a day not too far in the future where the cane will be set back in the holder.

I think I overdid it a bit the end of last week, although I was never in pain. It's odd that on days that I work the knee perhaps too much, sleep comes fine, and when I don't overdo things and rest a day sleep is again an issue. Again, not really pain as much as just uncomfortableness that keeps me up. However, things keep progressing, so I hope this is a brief period of problem...
 
Well, a day of work, which involved a fair amount of walking, and a evening of recumbent, whirlpool, ice and TENs, should have, I thought, set me up for a full night of sleep...

Silly me, thinking again.

The day went well, the walking was straightforward, without many surface surprises. But, by the end of the day the knee was feeling a bit stiff, although not swollen to speak of. I had iced it at lunch, and back at the hotel I first rode the recumbent in the hotel gym for 20 minutes, and then took a hot bath in a jetted tub, and then iced for a bit before dinner. After dinner was TENs, and then bed. My usual 3am wakeup for pills resulted in at least an hour of sleeplessness, after which I arose back up to TENs again (as I write this) and hopefully sleep again. First night in a week or so I have considered cracking open the narcotics bottles, just to get back to sleep in a hurry. But, will try 30 min of TENs first to see how it works out...

Trip has gone quite well so far, and the knee has not been a major pain. I am moving slower, but that's ok, not in a hurry. One long term client was concerned I was pushing it too hard, trying to get going again quickly, but I assured him that I am quite willing to let the recovery take as long as it wants to. Progress continues apace, and I am in a reasonably good place right now (except for 3am). The wedge pillow is a good thing at the start of the night, but by 3am it is tossed overboard. I have slept a bit on my side without the pillow between my knees for the first time. Also getting a bit more straightness out of the knee (although it was accompanied by a small pop on the non-replacement side, which I thought a bit odd).
 
Question for the group, how many of you seem to have weather related pain? After getting about 3 hours of sleep last night I noted that there was a cold front passage last night...

Inquiring minds want to know!
 
My knees tend to ache more when a front comes through. I was advised by my in home PT to thing of using an anti-inflammatory during that time and increase fluids. I have followed this and it does seem to help.
 
That doesn't bode well for flying, rapid altitude changes might not make it happy. Well, I will blow up that bridge when I come to it..

Done with the trip and back home. It went well, and while the knee didn't cause me any real problems while out with customers, it did cause me all sorts of sleep disruption. Nap time now...
 
Sweet dreams. I would not think the knee would react that quickly with pain to altitude changes. I had some arthritis in my knees for a long time and my husband was a private pilot and I never noticed anything in my knees and yet weather fronts would cause them to ache. As you say, you will deal with it when you are once again up in the blue.
 
Well, after a couple of more nights of limited sleep back home, I finally gave up and picked up some Advil PM. I am loath to go this route as I am aware that after being on them for a couple of nights, coming off will be worse. Since I am working on unloading off the Advil first, it would have made more sense to get some Tylenol PM instead, but there you go.

In any event, it worked as advertised. I popped 2 PMs about 8:30 and went to bed about 10, quite drowsy. Sleep immediately, and then popped 2 more at 3am and right back to sleep. Total sleep for the night, 10 hrs. Woke feeling a bit fuzzy, but that has cleared up even without coffee (filter and holder currently in dishwasher cycling).

The fact that the very light sleep agent in the over-the-counter PMs would get me back to sleep so well points up even further that the problem is less pain and more just enough uncomfortableness to elude sleep after the 3am pills. I am thinking about tonight killing the 3am alarm and see if I can sleep through the night without the 3am dose, using the PMs at 8:30 and Tylenol at 9 only.

Other than that, the recovery proceeds apace. I spent a full hour on the recumbent yesterday, with the resistance turned up to 4, without any outward signs of distress after. Had a fairly full day, although tried to get in some naps after 3 hours of sleep only the previous night. I am still sleeping with the wedge, but it usually goes overboard about the 3am pills, and then either flat on my back or on my side after that. There is no swelling or heat in the knee on awakening (or at least getting up, lately). I have not used either the treadmill or the elliptical since the surgery, but I think the elliptical may get a try this week. The knee is strengthening pretty well, although still a far ways from normal. I am already, at 7 weeks, 5 days, further along in the recovery than I was at 5 months after the initial accident. This has been a constant source of buoyancy of spirit, and a reference point I fear that most of the others don't have to keep chin up.
 
Well, 8 weeks, and another milestone. Yesterday, I turned off all of my pill timers on my phone. I am still taking both a pair of Advil PM and Tylenol before going to bed, and I took a pair of Tylenol yesterday after my workout, but I am no longer on the full 4000 of Tylenol or the full measure of Ibuprofen either. Going to try to pick up some Tylenol PM today and move away from the Ibuprofen entirely, as it doesn't do any favors to my BP either...

Slept through the night again, got 8 full hours of sleep. I know I have probably a good 20 hours of sleep deficit to pick back up on, so afternoon naps are still on the menu (when I get time), and I am working on getting to bed before 10pm. For those who haven't gone through sleep apnea treatment, your sleep deficit account is 6 months long, after that it falls off the back of the desk. So I will probably be working on picking up more sleep through the end of the year. With the change off DST, that shouldn't be too difficult. I dislike winter because of the early nightfall...

I also got on the elliptical for the first time yesterday, 2 sessions of 5 minutes each. That, with the hour of recumbent, was enough to work up a bit of a sweat, which is also a first of getting into good cardio. The elliptical was certainly working on a new group of muscles, I could feel some getting tired very quickly. Puttered around in the shipping building for a bit, finding some stuff I had ordered a while back and then forgotten about (knee surgery does that to you<G>). Shipping is so tight that I left the cane behind to walk around with, that is getting better as well, although I foresee keep the cane for another week or so (maybe).

ROM is still improving (as it is on the non-surgical leg too), with it still trailing slightly behind the left, although yesterday we also measured what I could do with a standing raise, and that was a only a couple of degrees behind. Still icing after workouts, and also typically at the end of the day. Sleeping on the wedge still, will probably keep that up for a few weeks yet as well.

At 8 weeks, I am very pleased with my progress. I think 3 months to get back to where I was before the surgery will wind up being about right, perhaps even a bit conservative.
 
Congratulations, sounds like good progress and a nice steady recovery.
 
Well, hold the applause, because what does someone who thinks overachievers aren't trying hard enough do when things are going his way? Overdo it of course.

Today started out pretty well. A hour on the recumbent, and 10 minutes on the elliptical, followed by an hour workout with my trainer, going through several of the leg exercises. Then, I messed up. I walked to the mailbox. 600 yards down a gravel drive. By the time I got to the mailbox, I knew I had screwed up, but I also didn't carry any of my phones (normally 3) because I wanted a few moments "out" of the office. So, unable to call for a ride back up the driveway I walked.

It's not horrible. Should be fine tomorrow, but it got both stiff and sore by the time I got back to the house. Iced it three times this evening and doing the full Tylenol/Advil PM dose tonight before bed. Walking the full distance would have been just tiring on a prepared surface, but the uneven gravel was a bit much.

Stupid somuch...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Active Antimicrobial Hydrogel

Staff online

Members online

Total: 902 (members: 2, guests: 900)

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom