TKR Swimming Query

aries

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Hi,
I had a knee replacement op just over 4 years ago which went relatively smoothly and I made a good recovery.
A few weeks ago I went out for the day wearing a pair of shoes which were basically too loose and had heavy soles.
Since then I have been suffering with muscle aches and pains around my knee. I am thinking that I have strained the muscles and this is causing the discomfort.
I also find shoes with bouncy soles causes the muscles in my knee to ache.
I
I am now experiencing of the muscles tightening around my knee if I am standing still for a period of time.
Is this common and does anyone have any advice.
 
@aries ,
Welcome back to BoneSmart!
I am 5 years out from my revision, if I do too much or wear the wrong pair of shoes it will cause sore muscles and aching.
Bouncy shoes will force your leg muscles to work harder to stabilize your legs and body, keeping you upright. Recommend you stay away from them.
You may need to purchase new shoes, that provide the stability you need.

Please post your surgery date, a moderator will add it to your signature for you. Having the exact date will help us properly advise you. Thanks!

I am giving you are recovery guidelines, you may benefit from resting, icing, and elevating your knee while it is recovering from the to big, too heavy shoes.

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:
rest
ice
take your pain meds by prescription schedule (not when pain starts!)​

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.
 
Thanks very much for your reply. It is very useful to have a forum like this to discuss knee issues following surgery. My operation was August 2015 and things went very well. I am hoping that It was because I wore a pair of shoes which were unsuitable that I am having these issues st the moment
 
I haven't progressed that far but will watch your progression to learn what not to do! :wink: Best of luck and hopefully the change of shoes will work!
 
Hi there,

I had my left knee replacement over 4 years ago and had a very good recovery overall, although I did suffer with a small amount of muscle tightness above my my knee on the lateral side from time to time which I would feel when walking downstairs.

Anyway, about six weeks ago I went out for the whole day wearing a pair of flat, loafer type shoes which had a heavy, thick sole. They were also basically too loose. I have foot issues as well and have been advised to wear wide, deep shoes but finding any which fit, is a nightmare.

Since then I have suffered fro muscle aches around my knee and the muscles become really tight and uncomfortable if I have to stand still for a period of time.

I did see the consultant and he said that there is nothing wrong with the joint and advised physio. I have since seen a physio and GP who have advised exercises to build up quad muscles but I would be interested to hear from others with similar problems.

Walking is OK and I have been using ice packs, heat, ibrurofen but I do not seem to be able to get rid of the muscle tightness totally and get back to where I was.

Sometimes I have a slight ache in my lower leg n the inside which is annoying. This seems to have come on over the last few days.

A few days ago things did seem to be improving but I went out yesterday for a couple of hours wearing a pair of comfortable boots, but I think that they were too big so the muscle aches seem worse today.

Just wondering whether other people suffer from similar issues.
 
@aries 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.

You will notice that when you asked this same question in October one of our Moderator's gave you some very good input. Have you purchased new shoes?

You say you are doing PT. What exercises are you doing and how often?
 
Hi,
I am 6 days post left knee replacement.
Everything seems to be going OK at the moment and I am trying to complete exercises 3 times a day. Knee is very stiff and swollen so heelslides are extremely challenging. Not too much pain though which is good. Just wondering how much walking I should be doing at the moment and how other built up walking outside after kneexreplacement.
Findig it difficult to focus on anything and even struggling to follow inane TV programmes. I am blaming the drugs which I was given in hospital.
Also, incredibly thirsty a lot of the time and I am also blaming this on the drugs.
Poor hubby is already getting exhausted bringing things up and downstairs.
 
Hello @aries - and :welome: to recovery again.

Everything seems to be going OK at the moment and I am trying to complete exercises 3 times a day. Knee is very stiff and swollen so heelslides are extremely challenging.
Don't worry about doing those exercises so often. While your knee is so swollen, they won't help, anyway. At the moment, your knee gets all the exercise it needs, as you walk from bedroom to bathroom and back. Just do the ankle pumps to prevent DVT.

Poor hubby is already getting exhausted bringing things up and downstairs.
I'm sure you'd do the same for him, if the situation was reversed.
Do you have a bathroom downstairs? And do you have a comfortable recliner, chair with a stool, or a couch you could sit/lie on during the daytime?
If so, you could come down the stairs in the morning, spend the day downstairs, and go back upstairs to bed in the evening.
You should have been shown how to negotiate stairs before you left hospital. Make sure you have your husband go ahead of you when going downstairs, and behind you when you're going upstairs.

Here are our recovery guidelines - lots of useful and informative articles here:
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:
rest
ice
take your pain meds by prescription schedule (not when pain starts!)​

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. Try to follow this

6. Access to 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 the 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 the member’s history before providing advice, so please post any updates or questions you have right here in this thread.
 
Thanks for your reply which had a lot of helpful information and tips.
I think that we are slightly better organised now and have a system in place.
Nights are difficult due to regular visits to the bathroom. I think that this may be due to some of the drugs that I was given during surgery.
 
Hi,
I am 10 days post op. This is my second knee replacement. Did not have much bruising for the first few days but after about three days it started to appear quite dramatically.
Finding the Ted stockings very uncomfortable and counting the days left that I have to wear them for.
Also,looking forward to Friday when I have staples and dressing removed as heel slides are still quite challenging and hoping that things will be easier when all of the staples have been removed.
 
Findig it difficult to focus on anything and even struggling to follow inane TV programmes. I am blaming the drugs which I was given in hospital.
Also, your body is taking ALL available resources to heal, meaning the brain is running on tickover, too. I am with you, daytime TV was too challenging for me :heehee:
 
That will get better! It will. Been there and still do that and I am off meds for the most part now. It just takes time. My main complication to the TRK was insomnia! :tiredwheel: I still fight it but getting better.

For the first few weeks I just watched/ streamed light stuff reruns like Columbo (LOL) and a few documentaries on subjects I liked. When I was on the heavy meds I made sure not to watch certain shows that would disturb me. Just things I could drop off to sleep upon. Restart and watch later.

The exercises I did the most when I could do nothing further were heel to toe pumps - very basic but that was all I could do initially and I thats what I did, along with the very minimal things my visiting PT helped me with.

Nights are difficult due to regular visits to the bathroom.
 
Hi Aries, walking wise I'd say only do what you're comfortable with. Better to end thinking you could do more rather than overdoing it. I built up walking outside by marking lamp posts adding one on when I felt ready to. Someone else said they use houses.

As I progressed I used a step counter increasing the number of steps gradually. I hope your pains have diminished now. Good luck with your recovery.
 
Feel that I am making good progress with my knee. I have some flexibility returning and managing to control pain with paracetamol and ibruprofen.
However, My problem is sleeping through the night due to to 2 hourly visits to bathroom to urinate and on many occasions struggling to get there in time.
This morning I called the hospital to discuss my concerns and was told to take a sample to GP to test for infection.
Heard this afternoon that I have a urine infection and have been prescribed antibiotics so hopefully it will clear up soon.
I am just so annoyed that I did not take action sooner and really worried that this infection will travel to new joint.
Any advice welcome. I am finding this journey so difficult as there seem to be so many hurdles to overcome.
 
It's still very early days for you. Hopefully you'll feel a bit better when the antibiotics kick in. Don't be annoyed with yourself, you weren't to know and you've done the right thing now. Hang on in there, it will get better.
 
As the infection clears, maybe your sleep will improve. If it doesn’t, here’s what I tell everybody. I listen to audiobooks and lectures as I try to fall asleep. I often have to listen to a section several times to get it, but that’s not a problem because I’m using time I would normally be sleeping. Even if I don’t sleep, I feel that it’s been time well spent.
 
Thanks for your support. I will have to sort out some games on my phone to keep me entertained during my sleepless nights.
I have the elevate app on my phone which have a variety of different games to improve concentration. I certainly need that at the moment.
 
Unfortunately, having a UTI after this surgery is not that unusual. I had my first one about 6 weeks after my tkr. If I am understanding it correctly, the bacteria that causes a UTI is completely different than the bacteria that will cause a knee infection. I was concerned about the same thing you are, and was assured that it wouldn't cause a problem to my knee.
 
Aries, so pleased to find you on this site as I’m from the Uk too, although living in France.
It sounds as if you’re doing everything right. sleeplessness affected me more last time than this time, but that was when I discovered this site and started to use it.
im also interested to see you use the Elevate app. I have this too and use it every day.
its true that the first few weeks are horrid but it gradually gets better. I think your UTI hasn’t helped either. You’ll soon be feeling better now it’s being treated. Bon courage!
 
Hi Henrietta, nice to hear from you. I slept much better last night as I think that the anti biotics have started to work. Managed to go three hours before needing to visit the bathroom.
Knee is not feeling too bad but I am looking forward to Friday when I am due to have staples removed. On Monday I have my first physio appointment.
When did you have your knee surgery?
 

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