Yesterday, first day of outpatient PT. I really like my therapist. She is not into “Pain mode recovery” at all. The home exercise routine she gave me takes about 15 minutes, and she was very emphatic about not pushing anything to the point of pain. I will see her twice the first week, then once a week for six weeks, or until my goals are met. The flexion goal of 120 degrees, I have already met. From the beginning, I did a lot of heel slides, and using my walker, I would raise my foot from the floor and gently swing it back and forth 10 times or so. My first set of heel slides probably took me to about 70 degrees or so. I always went to a moderate level of discomfort, but did not force anything. Of course, there were those inevitable, momentary shooting pains, but those are manageable.
As I am reading different posts, I see many people take the initiative to explore and determine what works best for them, and stick to that. I find it infuriating that some PT’s will use threats of dire consequences to get people to do what they want them to do, instead of finding out what is best for them as an individual. There is a lot at stake here. There is a lot to be learned from our own personal experience, as well as that of others. Besides reading personal experiences and recommendations of others, I have read most of the articles referenced in bonesmart. Without that, I would still be “shooting in the dark”, because I knew absolutely nothing about what to expect, or how to deal with it. That lack of knowledge would leave me totally at the mercy of whatever “experts” happened to get involved. (Definition of Expert: EX = a has-been. Spurt = a drip under pressure).
Fortunately, all of the personell I have been involved with are top notch, and I believe that the majority of professionals in the field are as well. But still, you know better than anyone else how a given activity is affecting your body, and should feel free to ask questions and expect to receive honest and clear answers.
I am at 25 days now, and experiencing ALL of the normal after-effects, pain, sleeplessness, no appetite, exhaustion and fuzzy thinking sometimes, as well as the nagging “should I really have done this?”. But my therapist also assured me that all of her TKR patients eventually decided, “Yes. It was a good decision. I’m glad I did it”.
Five years ago, my wife was in treatment for cancer: Chemo and radiation. At one point, during a check-up by her Oncologist, she was at her worst, barely even alive it seemed. He said to her, “You’re about where you should be right now. In 4 months we’ll look back at this, and it almost won’t seem real”. I didn’t like that comment. Four months seemed at that time like forever into the future. But he was right. Four months later, she was well on the way to recovery, and is now 5 years out and doing fine.
NOW, in recovering from TKR, time has slowed down, and almost any distance into the future seems far away. But while I cannot speak from experience, not having been all the way through this yet, we can take hope from many others who have. Since my surgery, I have learned that some people I have known for some time had one or even bilateral TKR and I had no idea.
So, there is great hope for a NOW in the near future when this will be a fading memory, and we will “have our life back”, as a friend of mine (bilateral TKR) recently said. Keep going.
United States
It was during my first year-beginner’s luck! 
My second highest, this past fall, was a 159. 
