TKR Zanza's TKR

[Zanza]

My surgery was on July 6, 2022. I had a total right knee replacement. I am a 60 year old woman. I haven't posted before because I couldn't sit for more than a few minutes. The first two weeks I was in so much pain that my husband was scared something was going wrong after the surgery. All I did was keep my leg up and keep ice on it. The pain is better now. I have good range of motion. I can bend my leg almost 130 degrees, and I can straighten it fully. I can walk for ten minutes on an even surface without an assistive device.

I wanted to post because I am feeling truly miserable. I have had multiple fractures from a motorcycle crash and major spinal surgery and those things were not as painful or debilitating as this knee replacement. I can't drive or walk my dog. I have to use a shower chair to get in and out of the tub. If I sit down or stand still for a few minutes, my knee gets as stiff as a block of wood. I'm constantly afraid I will fall, but I'm not comfortable with a cane anymore because once I get moving my knee loosens up enough to let me walk almost normally, although very slowly. Is it normal for a knee to stiffen up like that once a good range of motion is achieved? Any insights would be appreciated.

In closing, I would like to say thank you to everyone who maintains and posts on this forum.

 

[ski_bum]

Is it normal for a knee to stiffen up like that once a good range of motion is achieved? Any insights would be appreciated.

In closing, I would like to say thank you to everyone who maintains and posts on this forum.

Good luck with your recovery. What is happening is everything the Doctors don't tell you will happen.
Then people like me, do a second knee knowing what it is going to be like.
Bonesmart staff will be along shortly with help.

 

[Cbet]

 

[hawk2go]

Hi @Zanza and to this side of the recovery.

Unfortunately, with TKR recovery "motion is lotion". Anytime I stand or sit for too long, the knee stiffens. Early in the recovery it took 20 to 30 steps to work out the stiffness but now it's just 2-3 steps, eventually it won't stiffen at all. Your ROM is fantastic at just over a month and I hope you celebrated your ability to toss the cane aside. I continued to use my cane outside well after I needed it because it provided a great social cue that I needed a bit more time and/or room than most.

I will leave you our Recovery Guidelines even though you're well on your road to recovery. Each article is short but very informative. Following these guidelines will help you have a less painful recovery.

Just keep in mind all people are different, as are the approaches to this recovery and rehab. The key is, “Find what works for you.“ Your doctors, PTs and BoneSmart are available to help, but you are the final judge as to the recovery approach you choose.

Knee Recovery: The Guidelines
1. Don’t worry: Your body will heal all by itself. Relax, let it, don't try and hurry it, don’t worry about any symptoms now, they are almost certainly temporary
2. Control discomfort:
rest
elevate
ice
take your pain meds by prescription schedule (not when pain starts!)
don't overwork.

3. Do what you want to do BUT
a. If it hurts, don't do it and don't allow anyone - especially a physical therapist - to do it to you
b. If your leg swells more or gets stiffer in the 24 hours after doing it, don't do it again.


4. PT or exercise can be useful BUT take note of these
the BoneSmart view on exercise
BoneSmart philosophy for sensible post op therapy

5. At week 4 and after you should follow this
Activity progression for TKRs

6. Access to these pages on the website
Oral And Intravenous Pain Medications
Wound Closure

The Recovery articles:
The importance of managing pain after a TKR and the pain chart
Swollen and stiff knee: what causes it?
Energy drain for TKRs
Elevation is the key
Ice to control pain and swelling
Heel slides and how to do them properly
Chart representation of TKR recovery
Healing: how long does it take?

Post op blues is a reality - be prepared for it
Sleep deprivation is pretty much inevitable - but what causes it?

There are also some cautionary articles here
Myth busting: no pain, no gain
Myth busting: the "window of opportunity" in TKR
Myth busting: on getting addicted to pain meds

We try to keep the forum a positive and safe place for our members to talk about their questions or concerns and to report successes with their joint replacement surgery.

 

[Zanza]

Is it normal for a knee to stiffen up like that once a good range of motion is achieved? Any insights would be appreciated.

In closing, I would like to say thank you to everyone who maintains and posts on this forum.

Good luck with your recovery. What is happening is everything the Doctors don't tell you will happen.
Then people like me, do a second knee knowing what it is going to be like.
Bonesmart staff will be along shortly with help.

Thank you, Ski Bum! I feel I was massively unprepared, the home health people mostly talked about an ice machine, which I could not use.

 

[Zanza]

Hi @Zanza and to this side of the recovery.

Unfortunately, with TKR recovery "motion is lotion". Anytime I stand or sit for too long, the knee stiffens. Early in the recovery it took 20 to 30 steps to work out the stiffness but now it's just 2-3 steps, eventually it won't stiffen at all. Your ROM is fantastic at just over a month and I hope you celebrated your ability to toss the cane aside. I continued to use my cane outside well after I needed it because it provided a great social cue that I needed a bit more time and/or room than most.

Thank you, Hawk2go. I read all those articles a while ago. I especially found the Bonesmart philosophy on exercise helpful. The physical therapist wanted me to do a few minutes every hour, and that was getting me nowhere. I went with your guidelines and that's when a lot of the swelling went down and I could get some real ROM.

 

[Zanza]

Thank you, Cbet!

 

[benne68]

Hi @Zanza and welcome.

What you are experiencing is completely normal. This really is a year-long recovery (I'm at almost 11 months and can attest that it really does take that long). You are only about 5 weeks into it so your poor leg hasn't recovered from the trauma caused by all that sawing and hammering and pushing and pulling that your surgeon did.

I found this chart really helped me understand why it takes so long:

As you can see, there is still a lot of healing to come!

 

[Zanza]

Hi @Zanza and welcome.

What you are experiencing is completely normal. This really is a year-long recovery (I'm at almost 11 months and can attest that it really does take that long). You are only about 5 weeks into it so your poor leg hasn't recovered from the trauma caused by all that sawing and hammering and pushing and pulling that your surgeon did.

I found this chart really helped me understand why it takes so long:

As you can see, there is still a lot of healing to come!

Thanks for the chart, benne68. That does help. My insurance won't give me a note for time off after eight weeks, but I had already given some serious thought to taking an extra month. I work in an elementary school and there's a lot of walking. I want a good outcome from this surgery, I don't see that it's cost effective for the insurance company to throw me back to work before I'm really healed. Your chart really shows why I need that extra time.

 

[Susie-Q]

I agree, I wouldn't go back to work until at least 3 months post-op and I would try and do a phased back approach with breaks for sitting and icing.

 

[Zanza]

I agree, I wouldn't go back to work until at least 3 months post-op and I would try and do a phased back approach with breaks for sitting and icing.

I wish that was an option. I'm a behavior technician, so I'm on call for any and all emergencies at the school, including combative students. Still, it's an elementary school and I'm pretty good at defusing situations, so I hope I'll be able to handle it. Not much option, I can only afford to take one month of unpaid leave. It's too bad there's a push to make people go back to work before they are ready, it seems like it would be more cost-efficient to have a person well recovered before returning to the daily grind.

 

[kneeper]

You say the pain is better. Are you taking anything for it? even tylenol? I found that although acetaminophen didn't do much pre-op, it helped post op. Much of my pain after a few weeks felt as much like stiffness as pain, and the tylenol helped me feel less stiff. Not that I was springing up from chairs or anything...

 

[Zanza]

You say the pain is better. Are you taking anything for it? even tylenol? I found that although acetaminophen didn't do much pre-op, it helped post op. Much of my pain after a few weeks felt as much like stiffness as pain, and the tylenol helped me feel less stiff. Not that I was springing up from chairs or anything...

I take a few Tylenol every day. I have arthritis so I always need a little Tylenol. And I have a regular prescription of Tylenol with codeine because after my back surgery I will sometimes get extremely painful back spasms. I sometimes use the codeine at night if I can't sleep. No, it's mostly stiffness now. The physical therapist asked what I'm having trouble with and I said getting up from a chair and he just LOOKED at me. I hope the stiffness resolves because that's the one thing that is really holding me back from walking normally.

 

[sistersinhim]

I hope the stiffness resolves because that's the one thing that is really holding me back from walking normally.

Wow, if that is the only complaint that you have at 5 weeks then you are truly blessed! Most would love to be where you are right now.

 

[Zanza]

I hope the stiffness resolves because that's the one thing that is really holding me back from walking normally.

Wow, if that is the only complaint that you have at 5 weeks then you are truly blessed! Most would love to be where you are right now.

Truly? I have felt so desperately blue about this whole thing. I fought for years to get this knee taken care of while my world got very small and now I keep thinking about the old saying "Be careful what you wish for in case you get it." There, I made a joke! This forum is being a great help, I just wish I had found it before the surgery and then I would have been much better prepared. I think it's just the shock of how painful and disabling it has been that is getting me down. I try to remind myself that I am blessed, because I remember from my childhood and the old ladies in church with their canes and rolling back and forth when they "walked" because their knees didn't bend. I really must remind myself to try looking on the bright side. And thank you, sistersinhim, for your kind and encouraging words.

 

[Susie-Q]

As a wise person once said on here, "patience" is the muscle we need to work out the most with this recovery. I remember feeling the same at 5-6 weeks. Will I ever get back to what I was going before? It will happen, unfortunately it just takes time. And feeling blue? Totally normal. Hang in there! (by the way, I love your avatar picture, it's so colorful!)

Post op blues is a reality - be prepared for it

Post op blues is feeling depressed, weepy, nervy, shaky, fearful of the future, anxious, overwhelmed by what is happening to you, convinced it's never going to get any better and finally, uttering that most intense of all cries "I wish I never had this done!" It arises out of a variety of...

bonesmart.org

 

[Zanza]

As a wise person once said on here, "patience" is the muscle we need to work out the most with this recovery. I remember feeling the same at 5-6 weeks. Will I ever get back to what I was going before? It will happen, unfortunately it just takes time. And feeling blue? Totally normal. Hang in there! (by the way, I love your avatar picture, it's so colorful!)

Post op blues is a reality - be prepared for it

Post op blues is feeling depressed, weepy, nervy, shaky, fearful of the future, anxious, overwhelmed by what is happening to you, convinced it's never going to get any better and finally, uttering that most intense of all cries "I wish I never had this done!" It arises out of a variety of...

bonesmart.org

Thanks, SusieQ! I'm a Christian, so I wanted an ichthus, and that was the most colorful one I could find.

 

[LaJudes]

I hope the stiffness resolves because that's the one thing that is really holding me back from walking normally.

Wow, if that is the only complaint that you have at 5 weeks then you are truly blessed! Most would love to be where you are right now.

Truly? I have felt so desperately blue about this whole thing. I fought for years to get this knee taken care of while my world got very small and now I keep thinking about the old saying "Be careful what you wish for in case you get it." There, I made a joke! This forum is being a great help, I just wish I had found it before the surgery and then I would have been much better prepared. I think it's just the shock of how painful and disabling it has been that is getting me down. I try to remind myself that I am blessed, because I remember from my childhood and the old ladies in church with their canes and rolling back and forth when they "walked" because their knees didn't bend. I really must remind myself to try looking on the bright side. And thank you, sistersinhim, for your kind and encouraging words.

I like your expression “stiff as a block of wood “ ! That would describe my knee after my TKR in 2018 . My stiffness never got better , only worse as time went on . Then after almost a year of treating an infection , I had a 2 stage revision done . The last surgery was June 28 , so a week before yours . The surgeon was a revision specialist and he put in a hinged knee replacement . I am not sure why , but I have had no stiffness at all with this one . I can get up and go right away , even if I was sitting for hours , and in the morning out of bed . And no pain. Not sure if it’s because of the hinged knee replacement or getting rid of the infection . I was also told with the hinged , l would not need PT unless I want it !

 

[InkedMarie]

Is it normal for a knee to stiffen up like that once a good range of motion is achieved? Any insights would be appreciated.

In closing, I would like to say thank you to everyone who maintains and posts on this forum.

Good luck with your recovery. What is happening is everything the Doctors don't tell you will happen.
Then people like me, do a second knee knowing what it is going to be like.
Bonesmart staff will be along shortly with help.

Thank you, Ski Bum! I feel I was massively unprepared, the home health people mostly talked about an ice machine, which I could not use.

Hello! How come you couldn’t use an ice machine?

Marie

 

[Zanza]

I like your expression “stiff as a block of wood “ ! That would describe my knee after my TKR in 2018 . My stiffness never got better , only worse as time went on . Then after almost a year of treating an infection , I had a 2 stage revision done . The last surgery was June 28 , so a week before yours . The surgeon was a revision specialist and he put in a hinged knee replacement . I am not sure why , but I have had no stiffness at all with this one . I can get up and go right away , even if I was sitting for hours , and in the morning out of bed . And no pain. Not sure if it’s because of the hinged knee replacement or getting rid of the infection . I was also told with the hinged , l would not need PT unless I want it !

I'm so glad you were able to get your knee resolved!