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THR THR Follows Unsuccessful ORIF - Keeping Fingers Crossed

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Hi @Suzette
I'm doing much better. I'm back to my normal level of challenges. I went to work Wed, Thr and Fri. About 5 hrs Wed and Fri and a full 8 on Thr.
I can do 5 hrs ( including 1 hr drive each way) with no problem. This 8 hrs on Thr was too much; butt pain got turned on again. It's never really gone away but was minimally aggravating.

I still can't walk without without a cane for any significant distance. The pain in the prosthetic knee is pretty significant and I'm afraid I will fall.
The physical therapist is aware and they have suggested exercises to help.
One is basically trying to reverse bend the knee with applied weight and the other is to do leg lifts with the whole leg rotated 45 deg turned out. The therapist notes that all the muscle on the inside of the leg is really atrophied
I feel like it is helping ever so slowly.

I have a friend at work whose brother broke the femoral neck and had the 3 screw fix like I did ( his worked ) and he is in his early 30's and it took him 5 months to walk without a crutch so I need to be patient .

While I'm at it, I feel like driving a car is the most challenging for the piriformis. I think it's worst than sitting at desk. What is your experience?

As always great to hear from you!
 
Hi @lalo I am happy things are going in the right direction with your knee, do you see a surgeon for your knee especially as you are now having some problems with it.

I think you are doing the right thing using a cane, just to take that pressure off your joints and to give you stability. Your leg has been through loads after the bike accident, the first disastrous op, and I would think it will take longer than a 'normal elective' hip replacement, due to the extra injuries you sustained .

You will get there in the end, but I suppose it goes back to that word, patience. I don't have any either!!

Driving, well, so far I have only driven about 12 miles, and work boss has started booking in 100 mile drives in my diary. I did discuss this at my meeting on Monday, and she 'seemed' to be vaguely interested in potential problems both with pain and with pain meds, but her reply was, that if I am in that much pain, and have to take strong meds maybe I shouldn't be in work at all....that annoyed me. But I am now allowed to book hotels, so I can stay over rather than keep driving the 100 miles each way. So that's good news.

So as yet, I do not know how driving further than 12 miles or longer than say half an hour is going affect my piriformis, I was hoping to test out my ability next week with my first longer distance drive of 50 miles, I was hoping I could use this drive to evaluate pain and what I can do to deal with it. But now I have been told that I have to go as a passenger in someone else's car to save on fuel. So will see how sitting still in a car goes instead of sitting in a car using the gas and brake goes. That's the important bit I need to test out....never mind

It's funny today my upper thigh throbs and tingles, my butt is telling me it's there, and I have sciatica pain down my leg too. Haven't had this much pain for a while. So tomorrow I will try and rest a bit more, I am dreading going totally full time next week. If it gets too much I am going to have to tell them I need to cut back again.

I hope you have a good weekend and that you rest up. X
 
@Suzette
I find that being a passenger is much easier than driving yourself. Be careful making a decision regarding suitability of driving based on passenger tolerance.
I'm sorry that your in a lot of pain again
I hope and pray that you do good next week but 5 in a row for 8 hrs plus driving etc. sound like a long shot.
My 2 cents, if it looks like you won't be able to do it cut your loss early and ask for more time before you take a recovery setback.
Reading your story and the interactions with you "trail boss" makes me realize his fortunate I am in that regard.
 
lalo said:
I still can't walk without without a cane for any significant distance. The pain in the prosthetic knee is pretty significant and I'm afraid I will fall.
The physical therapist is aware and they have suggested exercises to help.
One is basically trying to reverse bend the knee with applied weight and the other is to do leg lifts with the whole leg rotated 45 deg turned out.
Click to expand...
lalo, This is wrong. You cannot ever exercise pain away and especially not with weights! The leg lifts would be okay as long as you are only doing 4-5 once or twice a day but the weights - nooo!
 
@Josephine
Thanks for the feedback
On the leg lifts (with leg rotated at 45 deg) it's no weights do 10 reps 2 times a day.
Somewhere along the way and I wish I had paid closer attention so I could pin point the time, my prosthetic knee developed a kink of approximately ???? (Less than) 10 deg. For years after my knee replacement I could get the leg perfectly straight and the back of the knee could touch the bed or table. The PT thinks the kink is the result of atrophy.
So he suggests propping leg on chair and stool and either have another person apply tolerable pressure for 20 sec hold 10 reps 2 x a day. Alternatively if no one is there , suggest I use a strap and push with other leg or lay ankle weights over knee and leave for several minutes.
Please let me know if you think these exercises are helpful and appropriate .
 
Hi I appreciate your 2 cents worth, you are right, sitting stationary as a passenger is nothing like driving.

I have bought a wedge cusion, but can't use it on the car seat as it makes me twist the leg, sort of side ways, I haven't fathomed out how or why. Potentially it's making me sit too high so I lower my seat.

So back to adjusting my seat to position where I am trying to not twist my leg out sideways, when my foot is on the accelerator pedals. I never noticed I drove like that until now ! Funny how since the op, you become so aware of where the leg is positioned.

I do hope you get your knee sorted out, it must be very painful.

Have a good night and the rest of the weekend x
 
lalo said:
So he suggests propping leg on chair and stool and either have another person apply tolerable pressure for 20 sec hold 10 reps 2 x a day. Alternatively if no one is there , suggest I use a strap and push with other leg or lay ankle weights over knee and leave for several minutes.
Please let me know if you think these exercises are helpful and appropriate .
Click to expand...
Need you ask! I don't! There is no need and never any need to aply pressure or weights or anything similar. These are the things I recommend Extension: exercises for improvement with #3 and #4 being the best.
 
I took a setback last week and my piriformis has gotten as bad as it was right after surgery. The unfortunate circumstance that brought it on is that my mom, who lives out of state, suffered a heart attack and I went to visit her. Took a short plane trip to get there so I don't think the cramped seat is the cause.
I have been doing a lot of walking to and from parking lot to hospital room as well as spending countless hrs sitting in uncomfortable chairs in hospital waiting rooms.
Mom is still hanging in there but in an ICU unit and it's day to day.
It may last a while and after being here a week I have to return to work.
My piriformis was very manageable after 12 weeks but it took s long time to improve; hope it doesn't take as long to get better the 2nd time around.
 
I'm so sorry to hear about your Mom. My prayers for her and you. This stress can certainly make you tense which will directly affect your tightest muscle. Relax? I've been through that you can't just relax. Try to be calm as possible, stretch, and breathe. My thoughts are with you . . .
 
I'm on the way back home sitting at the airport terminal.
My sister made an appointment for me this morning with a massage therapist that she uses regularly.
I fought going but decided to not let her down as she had to pull strings to get the appointment.

I gave the therapist a short summary of the last 6 months and told her that my piriformis was killing me.
The session lasted about an hr. and when I walked out I was barely limping and walking pretty good without a cane.
The therapist worked the operated leg and there were several areas that were very painful. I as really surprised to feel pain in those areas since they are not ones that I had ever considered to be a problem. Somehow she very quickly found where all the pain was at.
I had a neck massage once about 20 years ago and that's the extent of my massage therapy experience.
It was an eye opener.
Ill be looking for massage therapist when I get home.
 
Hi @lalo I am so sorry about your mom x

I do hope you find a therapist. I really found the deep massage helped me loads. It hurt though when she used her elbow to massage! I am still having some piriformis pain but not as much as before massage therapy. Trouble now, is she has gone in maternity leave so I am hoping that thinfs continue to improve with out her.

I enjoyed swimming on holiday. I did use the warm water to stretch my butt muscles and it seemed to help too.

I hope things improve for you soon, x
 
Sisters are awesome and so is massage! Glad you found some relief and I hope you find a good therapist at home. Still sending good thoughts your way.
 
@Suzette
Hi I'm sure you are all settled from your vacation and I know that things at work are better.
I know you have been keeping up with my thread.
Here us my question, is your piriformis under control?
My is very bad with the recent trip and all activity.
What about your driving? I think driving is the hardest for me.
I just bought a wedge cushion for driving.
I think you have one?
I'm getting around better but the butt pain just won't go away?
 
Hi, sorry in the delay in replying @lalo. ..well whilst I was on holiday, i had very little pain. But since I have been back, it has started again. I think it started on the plane as the seat was hard. I am not sure that it has got worse since the flight, due to the constant sitting at work, whereas on hols I was walking about or lying down !

The other day I was stuck in terrible traffic for 1.5 hrs where my foot was on and off the brake. The next day it hurt in my thigh. Now today i have sciatica down the back of my leg, worse in the calf and my butt hurts too. The 2 go together and I have had to take tramadol its that bad.

I too am stumped on how to avoid itrritating the piriformis. Funny thing though, i have just bought a cross trainer to try and build my quads back up, as my knee keeps cracking and I am sure I have made my pain worse putting the trainer together! !

I have been practising with my seat wedge but am having trouble adjusting my car seat. It makes me higher so I lower my seat then i cant reach the clutch peddle. So i move the seat forward and my right knee then hits the car trim when i lift my leg to brake.

Tomorrow i have a 100 mile drive. So I will be interested to see what that causes.
I am finding this pain pretty irrittating and depressing , especially as I thought I had sussed it on holiday.

I think I will monitor it this week then if it doesnt start easing I am going to the drs. The deep massage really helped. But the lady i saw is on maternity, so will hsve to find another one for a while.

Did the massage you had help? Are you taking pain meds?

X
 
Thanks for the reply.
Yes I have been taking pain Meds.
It's an incredible coincidence but I too have started to experience pain high on the thigh immediately in the area of the incision.
In the past I wasn't as aware of the sciatic nerve pain but this time it is full strength; it goes from the lower back to the knee.
I wish you the best on your long drive tomorrow.
I got the wedge cushion will see if it helps.
I can't believe how far back I have fallen with the trip to see mom.
I agree that this recovery is depressing.
Gona have to look up a cross trainer; some kind of exercise machine.?
Anyway I wonder if some day we will be able to send a message where we are past this?
Thanks again got your support.
Hope your week goes OK.
Ps yes the massage helped; need to find someone locally.
 
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@lalo as many have said to me along the way, "This too shall pass". The very fact that we continue to seek ideas, opinions, options and routes forwards means we want to succeed and we all know how stubborn us hippies can be! I hope things pick up for you and some of the annoying wrinkles preventing your progress can be eased out of the way.

Good luck and have a great recovery day
 
Hi @lalo how are things today?

I haven't tested out the cross trainer machine yet, but it supposed to be low impact on joints and works the quads and butt Plus stomach and arms. The trick now is to get a routine going to use it.

I am going to the GP next week about the thigh pain, which is where yours is. From the incision area down. And depending on how I stand, the pain in that area is like a huge burning stinging feeling that does feel like a nerve pain. Under the incision is still hard and has quite a wide band of hardness. I wonder if that is pressing on a nerve too.

The sciatica from the butt also goes down the back if leg to knee, then misses calf out and straight ankle.

I am sure this will all go away. But I just want a clinician to say , what the pain is, what is causing it, by at least running some tests on the nerve and ,maybe even an MRI to make sure nothing is pressing on nerves that shouldnt be, and then how to deal with it ... and when will it go away.

I hope you have a good sleep and pain is minimul
X
 
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