TKR Tykey's second knee replacement

He is @Tykey! I loved the fish & chips there!!
He was in the RAF for 32 years so he lost the accent that I love from that area! One of my sisters-in-law that still lives there is coming to visit us next weekend.
We do live in a small world at times!
Best wishes for a continued excellent recovery!
 
Everybody tells me it gets more difficult before it gets better. Getting quite painful when I use the knee, but settles down again pretty quickly when I sit or lie down.
What hasn't helped is that earlier this year I had radiation therapy for prostate cancer (successful) which has left me needing a few more urgent trips overnight. The good news is that I sleep next to the toilet. In the next room, I should say .
Time for a meds review I reckon, with icing and elevation. I'll add a bit of codeine to my cocktail and see how it goes, plus get my bag of peas from my freezer.
I've also developed a sling to put under my foot to help lift it up onto the bed or stool. It's only a belt, but it works very well.

And now one of my dogs has just jumped up right onto my knee. A perfect shot! How and why do they do that!!
Dog for sale: 50pence including delivery!
So on we go on this journey, remembering the destination is getting my life back.
All my best wishes to those who are on joining me on the trip.
 
Everybody tells me it gets more difficult before it gets better. Getting quite painful when I use the knee, but settles down again pretty quickly when I sit or lie down.
The same has been true for me, in general. Usually I only need pain medication at night, though, since I am a light sleeper. I think the pain level was a little bit less during the first week, due to the medications given during the surgery itself. But it has not been much worse later on.

What hasn't helped is that earlier this year I had radiation therapy for prostate cancer (successful) which has left me needing a few more urgent trips overnight. The good news is that I sleep next to the toilet. In the next room, I should say .
Sorry about your cancer, but thank goodness the treatments were successful. Having a toilet nearby is a big advantage. If I get up for a walk down the hall to the bathroom in the middle of the night, then due to the pain (and the fact that I am a light sleeper) it is impossible for me to get back to sleep. A portable commode has been a good temporary fix for that problem, for me.

Time for a meds review I reckon, with icing and elevation. I'll add a bit of codeine to my cocktail and see how it goes, plus get my bag of peas from my freezer.
I've also developed a sling to put under my foot to help lift it up onto the bed or stool. It's only a belt, but it works very well.
Excellent! It took me over a week to figure out how to do that. Scared me to death because of the potential for great pain, and I think that was the most difficult task I have learned so far. I have been sleeping in my recliner which is easier to deal with. But by now I am also getting much better at lifting my leg up onto the bed.

And now one of my dogs has just jumped up right onto my knee. A perfect shot! How and why do they do that!!
Dog for sale: 50pence including delivery!
I have no pets, thank heavens! I do love animals but I suppose that there are disadvantages to having pets sometimes.
So on we go on this journey, remembering the destination is getting my life back.
All my best wishes to those who are on joining me on the trip.
And the very best wishes to you, as well.
 
Thank you Carole, getting our knees up has great potential for pain, and it's needed many times a day. So ad hoc inventive ways are extremely useful.
Another thing which makes life difficult is going up stairs whilst holding the second elbow crutch in the hand which is supposed to be supporting me on the handrail.
I've resolved this by buying a third crutch from a charity shop (goodwill to you, I think). That way, I can leave one crutch at the top, one at the bottom to collect in passing. Cost me all of 3$
Glad the dog is only little, because she's just done it again
 
Excellent idea with the 3rd crutch! I love the British charity shops and wish we had some like them. Goodwill just isn’t the same!

The pain roller coaster is not a fun ride but if you can get the cocktail right it is tolerable... if you can keep your small dog off of it!

Despite it all, sounds like you are doing the right things! Wishing you continued good healing!
 
Hey Tykey - sounds like things are going well for you. Get those meds tweaked so you stay ahead of the pain. You know the drill well!
 
I've tweaked it, Jaycey! The codeine is helping a lot, and as I write, a bag of peas is melting on my knee.
The dog has jumped on my knee, again, but it wasn't too bad this time.
And Barlborough was truly fantastic, again.
Even for us old hands, we can gain a lot from reading and chatting on here!
 
And now one of my dogs has just jumped up right onto my knee. A perfect shot! How and why do they do that!!
My heaviest cat did that to my new knee. I screamed and yelled at him and he never did it again. Neither did my others.

It's good that you are getting your pain meds sorted out and your pain is under control. I suggest you get an ice machine. The cold water lasts at least 3-4 hours. I iced the whole time I was down. This kept my pain meds requirement way down.
 
It's 2am and I'm wide awake again☹️
In these wee small hours it's easy to start thinking negatively, but popping into Bonesmart is great therapy.
It's not a journey of continuous improvement, is it! But if I just think back to how I was 24 or 48 hours ago, there is no comparison, I'm doing great .
A couple of great friends popped over last evening to bring me a couple of pressies to cheer me up, which did! I had to walk downstairs and through the house into the conservatory to see them. An hour later I had to answer a call of nature which involved the same journey in reverse. I hit the brick wall, I was in pain, and my energy reserves were gone, I just couldn't do the stairs again. It felt like those Star Trek episodes where Scottie's dilithium crystals were totally discharged and the engines on the Enterprise wouldn't run. My lovely wife, Penny, came to see where I was and made sure I got into bed, then went back with my apologies. She's being a real star
So I find myself awake, typing a bit of meandering nonsense to pass the time, but realising how , despite some ups and downs, I'm doing great.
Thanks for listening
 
As you probably remember this recovery can take a long time, sometimes a year, and you are only in your second or third day by now. So obviously you can't expect yourself to be able to do everything immediately.

You're right! You are doing GREAT (but just overdid a little bit perhaps). Congratulations on walking down the stairs today, though! Good job. :yes!:
 
Thanks Carole, you are dead right. It would be nice to go back to sleep though. I'm cruising around You Tube for a while, and decided that Dr Phil's wife is extremely annoying, but can't figure out why
 
Oh she IS very annoying, I agree! LOL I think she has an inflated opinion of herself. Youtube is an endless source of entertainment, though. I had such fun on there earlier tonight - - discovered an old song from 1960 that I had forgotten but loved (at the time), "Money" sung by Barrett Strong. I remember my friends and I dancing nearly half the night to that one. Times long ago. Sure couldn't dance like that now.

Being older and wiser by now, I suppose we 71-year-olds would now relate better to a slower, more deliberate song called "Health". :rotfl:
 
As for sleeping, last night I unintentionally fell asleep without pain medication and slept soundly all night! I thought that was pretty cool. I'll try to see if I can do that again tonight, if my pain level is low. If it's not then I'll concede defeat.

If you are having trouble sleeping it might be due to low level knee pain. Don't forget to take your pain medication. :)
 
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I'll see if the drugs have sleepless side effects. But I might try the same anyway. Thanks Carole
 
Hi Carole. I've looked up the side effects of Codein, one of which is combining it with alcohol can make me sleepy
So I have a cunning plan for tonight
 
That doesn't sound very safe, Tykey! Better no sleep at all, than permanent sleep.... :)

I gave up and took my pain medication (hydrocodone, =Vicodin) five hours ago, fell asleep right away, and only just now awakened. I don't drink alcohol so this was just the pain medication letting me sleep.
 
This is from our NHS guidelines,
"It may be best not to drink alcohol while taking codeine as you're more likely to get side effects like feeling sleepy."

I only ever have one beer a week, so I will be OK. But thanks for your concern, Carole.
The dog has just jumped on my knee for the 6th time, and the pain is a lot less. So I'm improving at a good rate .
I can now just manage with one crutch, but I always take the other just for a bit of stability.
 

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