Hello
@aries - and
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:
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.