I had my first TKR Aug. 7 07, and am scheduling the second for early March.
I started getting deep tissue massage about once a week, beginning in Dec. 06, and I'm convinced it has saved my life. I don't know if it's advised with the stenosis, but my experience with massage therapists suggests that a good one would work around it if it's a problem -- of course consulting a doctor's in order. But it has made MAJOR difference for me with the muscle cramps in my legs and hips and lower back pain caused by having to walk with my arthritic knees bent. (Now only one bent, the "unoperated leg" as they called it in the hospital.) It has helped me physically, but I think the biggest difference it has made was helping with depression. It helps on many levels: the relaxation it induces is similar to meditation or the deep relaxation of yoga, so I assume it changes brain chemistry in helpful ways. It improves your circulation, and that effect feels to me something like after exercise and its feel-good surge. It helps to know you're doing something good for yourself, fighting back against the pain and disability. (And you don't have to work at that part!) I think it also helps to lie there and have someone paying total attention to you for an hour or 90 minutes. Deep tissue massage is painful at times, but ya feel so good afterwards that you essentially forget that. And my m. therapist thinks I'm so used to pain, I don't seem to mind it as much as some do when a sore muscle complains when he works it over. I saw an article recently that cited a research report that showed massage helps people manage chronic pain more successfully. I'm a complete convert, and think the medical profession should make more use of it.
It isn't cheap, but some health insurance policies now cover it. My guy works at a day spa, but I have a friend who gets her massage afterwards from her acupuncturist. I took a break from getting the massages for awhile after the surgery, because I couldn't lie face down comfortably, and at first we put a folded towel under my thigh to protect the knee a bit. But he would have given me a massage without having to lie face down on the table, even said he'd come to my house if I needed him to. In retrospect, I think I should have. Anyway, knowing I had it to look forward to was one of the things that cheered me on in that grim time after the surgery when I thought I'd never have my life back, never quit hurting, never be able to bend my knee ever again enough to do things like get in and out of a car, never sit comfortably, never sleep more than 90 minutes and always wake up in pain for the rest of my life.... Gosh, and I'm doing that to myself again next month?!?!? I'm telling myself that knowing what to expect and how to cope with make it go better. BTW, I iced a lot more than twice a day. And I swear by my NSAID, etodolac (commercial name Lodain). It's been on the market long enough to be available as a generic, so is dirt cheap and has had time for side effects to show up (basically the ones similar to ibuprofen), and is relatively easy on my stomach -- less bother than ibuprophen for me, and the doctor who originally prescribed it said the Veterans Affairs had conducted a study that showed less gastric irritation with it. Though I take it with food and water and try not to take it right before going to bed, i.e. lying down. I went back on it after I went off blood thinners because of the arthritis in the unoperated knee, but it also helped a lot with the swelling in the operated knee.
Glad I found this site. I read entries a couple months after the surgery, and wished I'd known about it before the surgery. People I'd talked to who'd had the surgery, all but one, glossed over the bad bits afterwards, and I think it made it harder for me because I wasn't psychologically prepared. And thanks, Josephine, for the advice and cheer. Nurses are the reason any of us survive hospitals, and I think do more real good than the doctors.