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TKR Sharon’s second knee recovery!

It is cold here in Colorado, too! I am sitting by the fire and watching it snow!
I made Zuppa Toscana soup in the crockpot today, so it is starting to smell delightful in the house!
Happy Groundhog Day!
 
@Susie-Q .... that’s Some bathtub! My grandson would love the steps, but, not much room for his toys. He asked if he could take a bath when they were here Saturday . A bit perplexed, I asked “ but you aren’t dirty...”, & his response was, “ oh, I just want to play with my bath toys in the tub”. He’s definitely not opposed to being dirty!
I guess what we got here was some of the “ Snowmaggeton”! It snowed all night & most of today. Really is beautiful... and, Cold!. I believe tonite is 0 or below, & -5 tomorrow night. So we’re hunkered down, staying dressed warmly & enjoying that soup. Hawkie, my husband kept reminding me, “ now watch out! You don’t want to land yourself back into the ODIC corner!”. I tend to be my own worst enemy regularly. Btw, if you have Murray’s cheese products in your area, they have an Irish Cheddar with whiskey stout that is Super sharp. I found some in our deli cheese section when I was shopping & thought of you. It’s Delicious!
@Sks1997, my daughter texted us last night that their schools were cancelled for today. Usually, they don’t find out til early morning sometime. I think she was happy they could let our grandson sleep in. She sent us a video of their little Siamese kitty venturing out into the snow in their backyard. “ Sabina” is quite adventurous & made a little tunnel. I think we all got a pretty good amount of snow, we can definitely use the moisture, it’s been dry so far.
@Sks1997 & @Sara61, We also watched “ Frankie & Grace”, pretty funny. Right now we are watching “golden Girls”, & are really enjoying it. They were all very talented actors & worked well together. I think our kids were young when that series was going, & we were watching “ Buck Rogers”, Battlestar Galectica, & Little House on the Prairie. I really loved that one. It’s strange to think of so many of those child actors grown, & many of the adults, gone. It’s nice to be able to re-visit them.
You trip to Florida is not far off now, you should really enjoy that warm climate.. About this time of year, I begin to look forward to Spring, & even Summer. Looking forward to our garden this year. I’m hoping to do some of my own. “ starts”, my sister in California always does ( they have a nice little greenhouse, & she even does her tomato plants from seeds.) I’m making myself hungry for some of those garden fresh veggies! Think I’ll go heat some of that potato soup! Everyone stay warm, & have a lovely evening.....
 
I have resorted to trying the Saran Wrap around my knees. Yes that is plural. My old knee that I had the PKR hurts as much as my new knee at times. And my house is cold and it is really cold outside. I am hoping the wrap might warm my knees up. I had tried this in the early days and got it too tight and took it off and just didn’t try it again.
 
MARYCOOL said:
It is cold here in Colorado, too!
Click to expand...

Hi @MARYCOOL , I'm also in Colorado and yesterday/early today was indeed cold! We registered -10F (-23C) this morning. Soup by the fire sounds great ... wish I thought of that too!

Hi @Jockette , my new knee seems not to mind weather changes but my bad knee tends to react to drastic barometric changes. Hopefully that too will change when that knee's been replaced too.
 
Hi, @Sks1997 .... I have not tried the Saran Wrap, but, like you, I think the cold does affect my Knee leg painfully at night, also my hips. I decided to try one thing that has worked for me in the past....we have some blankets that we got over 20 years ago, before we moved to Colorado, & made several trips a year from Texas to visit our daughter. I believe we got them at service stations......they were striped, Mexican or Indian designs. Still have 5 or 6. They are heavy, and Warm! I put one, several thicknesses, over my leg and hip ( even with a down comforter!). Last night I tried this, being sure to position it well, and while I won’t say I had No pain this morning, it was Definitely better! At first, I attributed the pain to walking or maybe some leg exercises I have started back doing. But I really think it is the cold. Like @MARYCOOL and @ Glidefloss, I’m in Colorado, & we got this latest blast of cold. Our thermometer showed -12 when we got up at 6:30. . Good luck with the Saran Wrap; I’m anxious to see how that works. ( btw, do you wrap it tight or loose?). Stay warm.
 
@Sks1997 Have you got a soft fleece throw this is soft to wrap round your knee, maybe a hot water bottle would generate some warmth. :praying: that the Saran wrap works. I tried it briefly at the beginning but found it too uncomfortable, first night was fabulous the second was a disaster, it will be interesting to see how you fare.
 
@Catalien45 When I did it way back in the early weeks, I used press and seal and i put it on too tight. This evening I wrapped it a little looser so it wouldn’t be uncomfortable. I have not done anything remotely strenuous in the past 3 days so thinking the cold temps have affected it. We aren’t sub zero yet but have high wind and supposed to get sub zero temps this weekend. We typically have frigid weather in Jan and Feb.

@Sara61. I will let you know what my knees feel like in the morning. I always have on leggings and sweatshirt and sometimes another shirt under my sweatshirt. Hoping you had a nice visit today with family. I know it’s hard when you are in pain.

Today I allowed anxiety to get the best of me. My non surgical knee has been hurting as much as my “new” knee at times. That knee had the partial back in 2016. Thinking of another knee surgery is where the anxiety comes in. It would make sense that that knee will probably have to have a TKR someday. My hope is that it is just aggravated from my limping before and after this surgery. The thought of another surgery almost makes me sick to think about.
 
@Sks1997 Yes it is lovely having Gabriella home unfortunately I wasn't my best today, tomorrow I will seek advice and get a 2nd opinion as I cannot live like this - right now a revision surgery I would welcome with open arms, anything to rid myself of what is currently happening, the fear of the unknown and excruciating pain.
 
@Sara61 my heart goes out to you! It has to feel so discouraging and scary too! Glad Carlos apologized! That is hard for some men. Please keep us updated tomorrow! Hope you can manage a few hrs of sleep!
 
Regarding the Saran Wrap, my non operative knee feels pretty good today. My “new” knee doesn’t feel too bad, still having the pops but pain isn’t too bad! When I took off the wrap this morning, my skin felt warm and moist.
I am going to try it for a few nights and see how it goes.

My husband just got our long driveway and vehicles dug out. He had to work all morning but for most of it he was on a 4 wheeler with a blade. He also dug out our older neighbor. And our neighbor gave him a yummy chicken pot pie! So we are set until the next big snow if we have one!

Have a good day all!
 
Hope you are finding ways to keep warm, Sharon.... So sorry your knees have been bothering you lately.

So strange to think of needing 4 wheelers with snow plow blades to keep the driveway clear. We just don't get much snow up here in western WA, usually just a few inches at a time so we just shovel. Enjoy the chicken pot pie, yum!!!
 
@Susie-Q most people around here use big tractors With blades or blowers. It is a farming community around here. We honestly haven’t had this much snow in a few years! My son had about a foot and so did my daughter.
 
I am actually glad that Sara went to a hospital versus just seeing her OS. It is apparent to me from so many posts on here and my own experience that the Ortho docs are mainly concerned with the hardware and don’t seem overly concerned with anything else unless it is something overtly horrible. They don’t even do a good job of pain control many times and want to get people off narcotics too early. They will say everyone’s knee recovery is different and each person has a different experience yet they want to cut off pain meds early for everyone. I felt lucky that my doc allowed me to have them almost 3 months. Why can’t they see how many other issues there are besides hardware problems. They are the ones that cut through our soft tissue, nerves, tendons and muscles. And I certainly understand that a lot of that healing just takes time. It just irritates me to think if Sara would have went to her OS if he would have done everything that the hospital did today!
Sorry for the rant!
 
I do agree that some surgeons have what my husband used to refer to as “tunnel vision” They look at hardware on the X-ray, and also often focus too much on ROM, (or lack thereof) when there is so much more to this recovery.

My 2 second opinions mostly looked at my X-ray which they both said was fine. So, no problem, or at least, no problem they wanted to look further for. :blackcloud:

Although, sometimes I wonder if there is good expertise in an ER for a post surgery orthopedic problem. I guess it’s a fine line, and just as our recoveries are all different because we are unique, the same has to be said for doctors. It seems Sarah got a good one who cared to really look for the problem, had the expertise, and address it!
 
I am happy that she got a good Dr and agree there ARE good Ortho docs and not so good ones! Some are skilled at doing the actual surgery and then don’t really want to deal with much else that happens with us in this long recovery! Mine pretty much discharged me after my 3 month visit. Stated if I had any problems to make an appt to see him.

But happy that she got a good ER doc who did the right things to find out what was going on!
 
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I wish mine had discharged me at 3 months! My appointments were so stressful (and I had many) as he always pushed my knee too far so he’d get a good ROM number. He was also big on PT and I felt so stressed because I had stopped doing the exercises and didn’t want him to know. (I was very stressed about everything in my first year!) My last appointment with him was my one year check up.
 
I am sorry you had that experience. On my PKR, I wasn’t here on Bonesmart and I was so freaked out with all the various types of pain and areas of pain that I probably drove my Dr office crazy. I had many appointments with my Dr for that replacement. On this TKR, I got on this site 2 months post op and learned so much about what a real recovery looks like(feels like). Although I get impatient and just plain sick of this recovery, I at least understand most of what has happened during my recovery and know that healing takes a lot of time for some of us.
 
I found Bonesmart at about 4 weeks post op, but didn’t join until almost 6 months post op. I read a lot here all that time in between, but missed out on the personal advice and camaraderie. I‘ve come a long way since then! :yes!:

Part of the stress that first year was believing what I’d read about partials being a quicker recovery, so I had unrealistic expectations. Then, when I didn’t have that quicker recovery, and learned here that partials take just as long as a total to recover from, which was an average of a year, I was angry! I was also angry that I’d been hurt by both my PT and my surgeon. Yes, I’m sorry to say, I had a lot of anger. That has quieted down to annoyance and acceptance now, but it was a really hard first year.

And now I also know that my difficult recovery also involves the probability that something isn’t right, which means it never had a chance to fully recover to a good outcome.

The only good thing that has come out of my PKR experience is that I found Bonesmart and now I try really hard to help others through their recoveries.
 
I appreciate all you do and you made a good decision coming to Bonesmart! My big fear about my partial knee is that the other side may be going bad and I will have yet another replacement. It makes me sick to think about it so I am trying to believe that it is painful and aggravated due to favoring it so much from limping before and after this surgery.
 
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