Lounge Doctor

TKR Two TKRs and a broken kneecap - on the mend now!

I decoded your typos just fine, @Neecey !
Ruby is a rescue, so I don’t know exactly what she is, but yes, I guess part border terrier, and part some other sort of terrier too. Ruby is 12-ish and starting to show her age, but still extremely loving and lovable! They are such wonderful dogs… You must miss Oscar, but those two look very cute too!
 
@FionaW, @ Neecey, Throughout this ordeal as I now call it, my dogs are what made me get out of bed on some days. so pleased I have them, however I still can't take them om propper walks just what I call little toddles. Good job I have Greyhounds as they can be quite lazy. When it rains I can barely get the female Patsy out the door, she looks at me like I'm stupid. Our pets can be such comfort. x
 
@Anniemof , I have been struggling to walk for about 15 months, and housebound for about 10, so my poor dog has been a bit short changed! Luckily, she’s 12ish, and spent the first eight years of her life being bred from in a poppy farm until she was rescued, so she doesn’t need and isn’t used to as much exercise as a younger dog… but we both miss our walks together. My knees collapsed in March or April ‘22, I had a stroke in September, I was diagnosed with depression in October, my little brother died in January, I had both my knees replaced in April and at the start of this month, and my right knee cap fractured on the same day of my second TKR. It has been a truly awful year or so, and I wouldn’t have coped without my Ruby-dog. :doggie:
 
Stopping by to say Hi on this one month anniversary of your Left TKR. I am sorry for all of the pain and heartache you've endured over the past 16 months or so, it's been a lot, Fiona. :console2:
Hopefully brighter days are just around the corner. I hope today is a good one! :SUNsmile:
@FionaW
 
Thank you @Layla . I hadn’t even remembered that today was a month after my left knee! It’s doing fine I think, although it has had a much harder time than my right knee did. It is very tight across the front of my knee - as if it has been stitched up too tightly! And in fact, I have had one or two problems with the stitching - they were supposed to be dissolvable stitches, but not all of them did dissolve! Consequently, although I can achieve 110° bend, it doesn’t come easily, which it did with the right knee. I have full extension. The muscles of my left leg have also obviously had a very different experience, since the poor things have had to do all their own rehab instead of having a ‘good leg’ to help! I think it will all come, in time. It is 3.5 weeks until I see the consultant, when he will make a decision about when the brace can come off… Then the real recovery work will start!
 
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Good to hear from you. Had been wondering how you were doing. All the best!
 
Happy Three Month Anniversary, Righty!
I hope you're having a good week, Fiona, and fingers crossed you get the brace off in a couple of weeks.
Please let us know when that happy day arrives. We're here for you always! :friends:
@FionaW
 
Thanks @Layla . I’m having a terrible night - one of my worst. I’ve got crazy sciatica in my left buttock and weird sensations down my left leg. I have collapsed vertebrae which have given me nerve problems and numbness down that leg for a couple of years, but I think the sciatica is being aggravated by having to sleep on my back, (which is not my natural position), and by the poor mattress on the guest bed (which I’m having to sleep on downstairs because - if you remember - the brace on my right leg means that I can’t get upstairs). This is also my first night without any liquid morphine at all, although I have been tapering (down to 2.5ml/once pd at bedtime) without any problem, and I have no knee pain day or night. I guess even that small amount was suppressing the nerve pain! Anyway, it’s 2:30am and I’ve been jumpy and hurting since I came to bed three or four hours ago, and no position or combination of pillows has so far helped. I’m currently experimenting with an apple under my left buttock (I don’t have a tennis ball), trying to position it on a good pressure point!

I’m really hoping that the brace on my right leg will come off in a couple of weeks, because the last few weeks have been very tough - not least because the brace does not fit well, and constantly slips down, which puts pressure on my damaged kneecap and limits how much I can mobilise. They’re making me a new one, but I’m told it might take a few weeks. I am so fed up with it all now!
 
I am so sorry to hear of your sciatica on top of your other problems. That is such horrible pain. I remember I could not find any comfortable position when I had it pre-op, but at least I was mobile.
I hope you can get back on to some effective pain relief, until you can get the brace off.
I found pregabalin of some help. I also found a memory foam sciatica cushion useful and firm spiky balls under the buttock for massage. But it really is the pits. Thinking of you and wishing you well.
 
Thanks @EalingGran . It is really horrible, especially not being able to jump up and down to relieve it. Basically, I have one leg that is still weak from surgery and another that is braced and locked in extension! :bawl:
I eventually got about 3 hours sleep. Ironically, what finally got me to sleep at 4:45am was browsing for a new orthopaedic mattress!
 
Not sure if you are allowed it with other meds but I would be asking your GP about sleep medication in your situation.
My GP was sympathetic in the early days post my PKR and gave me some zopiclone.
I used to half it and have saved some now for travelling, when sleeping away from home.
The other thing that does work is Nytol- a sedative antihistamine that you can buy over the counter. Again you would have to check with other meds and possibly just try a small dose.
I suffer with insomnia anyway since the menopause. I find just half a tablet of the lower strength Nytol ( 25mg) works without a hangover for me- so long as you don't use it too often.
Sciatica and not sleeping really is awful.
 
@FionaW Sorry to hear about your ongoing problems. You have my every sympathy over the brace. Although, I did strangely miss it, when it finally came off after 11 weeks! I think my leg had become institutionalised :wink:

I’m still taking codeine, just at nighttime, to help with ongoing leg/knee pain.

How is your “good” knee bearing up?
 
Thanks for your good wishes and sympathy @DogTiredKnees :)
I was taking codeine for about a year before surgery, maybe more. So unfortunately, I’ve built up a tolerance to it and it doesn’t really work for me - or at best, it just takes the edge off. But I think I might start taking it again, now that I’m off the morphine… I can’t bear another night like last night!

My physios have given up talking about a ‘good’ leg, because I don’t really have one, and instead, they talk about the ‘braced’ and the ‘unbraced’ legs! My unbraced leg is 5.5 weeks after TKR, and doing okay in terms of flexion and extension, but it’s still very stiff and cranky. It has had to do all the hard work, as if it were my so-called ‘good’ leg, right from the day it was replaced, which has been hard. It can now manage 2-3 steps, but still not without thinking about it, and still going up and down like a toddler! But the brace restricts me so much that it doesn’t really matter yet… On the plus side, neither knee really hurts as such - occasionally, they’ll twinge, but I’m getting more pain now from my back and shoulders and hands… I suspect I might get a bit more pain in both legs when the brace comes off and I start to be more mobile.
 
I'm sorry you're dealing with sciatica now, Fiona. Then the inability to get comfortable enough to sleep has to be miserable, plus all of the other discomforts you're struggling with. :console2: I just pray you start feeling better soon.
@FionaW
 
@FionaW, so sorry to hear the you're suffering with sciatica. I've only had once, when I was much younger, it was the worst pain ever. I hope you get some relief. Would your GP give you something or even another bottle of Morphine. I know they can be funny about it but how many of them have been through what you have. Maybe worth asking. I think the baby has been thrown out with the bath water sometimes on pain meds. x
 
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