TurtleKnee
new member
- Joined
- Nov 24, 2020
- Messages
- 16
- Age
- 78
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
It has been 14 weeks since my surgery on August 18th, 2020. The largest problem has been sleeping in my bed. After lying in bed for 30-60 minutes, my knee starts to ache, radiating down to my foot and up to my thigh area. Then, I take a pillow and put lengthwise under my leg, where I am able to sleep about 60 minutes before it starts to hurt again. At that point, I get up and go sit in a recliner. I have NO pain while sitting in a recliner, but have some pain in the reclining position after 30-60 minutes. Then after 3-4 hours rotating between reclining and sitting, I go back to bed for about another two hours repeating the above sequence of lying in bed without and then with a pillow (so about 2 hrs in bed, 3-4 hrs in a recliner, then 2 hr in bed).
This has been a problem since the day of surgery where pain was starting after only several minutes in bed; this has since improved to 5 minutes, 15 minutes, and so on over the months to today's status above. Otherwise I have progressed very well. Had 2 weeks of home PT and about 7-8 weeks of outside PT. I have a home PT program I do daily. I am walking around almost normally only using a cane to walk across parking lots, etc. I am a swimmer and swim 6 days a week over a half mile at a time. I am able to clean house, drive, go the stores, and do most of what I used to do EXCEPT SLEEP. I have been an athlete most of my life and in good health and not used to this.
I knew this would be a long recovery, but am getting discouraged about not being able to sleep normally in a bed after 14 weeks. It has got better, but at a turtle's pace. Are others having problems sleeping like this 14 weeks after surgery, or am I just being impatient? When should I expect to sleep normally again and is there anything I can do to make this happen, or do I have to wait and let time take care of this problem?
This has been a problem since the day of surgery where pain was starting after only several minutes in bed; this has since improved to 5 minutes, 15 minutes, and so on over the months to today's status above. Otherwise I have progressed very well. Had 2 weeks of home PT and about 7-8 weeks of outside PT. I have a home PT program I do daily. I am walking around almost normally only using a cane to walk across parking lots, etc. I am a swimmer and swim 6 days a week over a half mile at a time. I am able to clean house, drive, go the stores, and do most of what I used to do EXCEPT SLEEP. I have been an athlete most of my life and in good health and not used to this.
I knew this would be a long recovery, but am getting discouraged about not being able to sleep normally in a bed after 14 weeks. It has got better, but at a turtle's pace. Are others having problems sleeping like this 14 weeks after surgery, or am I just being impatient? When should I expect to sleep normally again and is there anything I can do to make this happen, or do I have to wait and let time take care of this problem?