TKR Verwoodian's recovery thread<

[Verwoodian]

Hi Marieltha. Haven’t been on the site for awhile. I’m ok but am really frustrated with how my knee feels. I can do all my ADL and walk but my knee constantly hurts. It is now all around and under my kneecap and tight behind my calf. Still ice, elevate and massage but nothing is helping. I’m hoping I’ll find out if this is normal when I have my check up next month, it would be nice just not to feel it anymore and for it to be like a normal knee.

How are you progressing?

 

[sistersinhim]

I'm sorry you are still having lots of pain. You are still just 1/3 of the way through this year long healing. I believe some pain is still normal. Since I can't feel your pain, I have no way of knowing if it's just part of healing, overdoing, or something else. I suggest you ice and elevate as much as you can to try and lower that pain. The tightness is swelling, which icing and elevating will help that, too.

 

[Josephine]

I’m hoping I’ll find out if this is normal when I have my check up next month

I can tell you - as can many others here - that it is, totally normal. You're only 18 weeks out which is actually pretty early. You'll probably find that all these aches and pains will continue until around the end of September.

 

[marieltha]

Hi, nice to hear you back. I too have to keep reminding myself that the recovery is still in the early stages.

I have had my first big outing (full details in my knee recovery thread), and added moist heat under the calves and hamstrings while I am icing the knees on top. I do this at bedtime. This has really helped with the stiffness, so I now do a bit of the moist heat in the bed before I get up. I have a waterproof electric heating pad in a soft case and add a moist washcloth inside the case to make it moist heat.

I have decreased my total walking and duration of each timed walk and have improved.

And now I am trying to break up my periods of inactivity (rest) during the day by getting up and walking for a few steps every 20-40 minutes. This also seems to have helped with the stiffness/tightness/pain.