Bilateral TKR Stiffness

[Yerdua]

July 1st will be 4 months since my bilateral TKR. It has been an extremely difficult time and my ROM is slow but coming. Right is 97, Left 91. Swelling minimal. But for the last month every night and daytime if resting, my left knee (which needed to be replaced 8 years ago but I waited) is incredibly painful when I lay down. It wakes me up every 40 minutes in horrible pain. I have to get up and walk to stop it. The intense stiffness is finally easing up after getting deep tissue massages from an extremely knowledgeable masseuse. But the pain in just the L knee, under the kneecap and the entire knee itself is driving me crazy.

Why is this happening? Why does it stop when I get up to walk and then sit but if I try to go back to sleep (any position that keeps my legs up) the pain starts and wakes me up in agony.

I started using heat on my thighs as my muscles are guarding and have knots. It is helping tremendously with stopping it and removing the stiffness. Still have the stiffness on top and sides of both knees but I know with massages it will ease up.

But any advice on why my left knee is so incredibly painful when laying down or straight on the bed/lounge chair I would appreciate it.

 

[bottomshollow]

above, @Yerdua, into your original recovery thread.

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[SusieShoes]

Why does it stop when I get up to walk and then sit but if I try to go back to sleep (any position that keeps my legs up) the pain starts and wakes me up in agony.

I don't know exactly why (not quite enough of an anatomist or physician for that) but I do suspect the "what."

When you are standing or sitting, the stress on your new knee and its many parts comes from different angles than it does when the leg is stretched out (or even bent) on a bed or other flat surface.

My left knee was sometimes a bit of a beast during recovery. It never seemed happy when I tried to lie in bed. It woke me up with sharp burning pain. The only position that made it happy was when I lay on my back with my legs up on a foam wedge. If I lay flat in any position... side sleeping, on my back, didn't matter... it hurt. This went on for months. Like with yours, my knee was fine for walking or sitting, anything but being in bed!

What I figured out for my knee -- and it may apply to yours -- is that my left knee didn't like the angles involved in lying flat on the bed. Mattresses sink, and create less support in spots and more support in others and, well... the knee didn't like it. The one thing that worked, sometimes but not every time, was to put a pillow longwise between my legs. What DID work eventually...

TIME. It took several months, much longer than I would have liked, for my left knee to heal to the point where it stopped caring about my sleeping position. It's fine now and only complains a little about once a month.

If this sounds like what is happening with your knee, give it a little more time. Patience is a virtue because it can be so difficult to be patient!

 

[HoneyB]

With my LTKR (February 19, 2018), I had terrible pain in bed at night. I ached from the top of my leg to the sole of my foot. With my RTKR (June 4, 2018), I bought a TENS machine. I use it at bedtime. First, I put the four electrodes in a square surrounding my knee. Next, I put them in a square on the back of my thigh for my hamstrings. Usually, that's all I do, but sometimes I also put them in a square on the back of my calf. I don't know if the TENS is the reason, but I'm sleeping much better with my RTKR than I did with my LTKR. I think the TENS relaxes my leg for bedtime. I've had a couple of nights where I woke up in the middle of the night and put it on a spot that happened to be sore.

 

[SusieShoes]

I’ve heard a lot of good things about TENS for soft tissue pain. It’s worth a try if that appeals to you, @Yerdua. You said heat works, so at least you have that. Nighttime pain is miserable.

 

[Josephine]

I'd really like to offer you some structured advice but in order to do that, I also need to ask you some questions. Are you willing for me to do that?