My left knee had been a problem for 30 years, Late last year I tore the meniscus on my right knee, leaving me a good knee count of 0. I was scheduled to get the left replaced in March and then the whole world turned upside down and all elective surgery was cancelled for a while.
Finally got it done yesterday. Just over 24 hours since waking up and I’m surprised at how well it’s going. I can stand on it unaided, but still can’t move much without a walker. Not as incredibly painful as I expected, I’m taking about half the oxy dose provided. I’m sure it will be slow going for a while. At least in the delay I could work on strengthening that leg which got very little use in the past two years. If I’m lucky, and no new plagues arrive maybe I can get the right knee replaced in 6 months. There’s almost no cartilage remaining on that either so meniscus repair is not in the picture.
Any more Dopers have a knee replacement story to share?
I don’t yet. But I need to have a partial knee replacement which I’m putting off right now due to covid. I do have some questions. Was this an outpatient surgery? Did you have to have any pre-surgery testing done? How long will you have to go to rehab?
No, I was overnight in the hospital, but my surgery didn’t start until around noon and took a while because of the extent of the damage, so it was already 5PM when I came out of sedation. Patients sometimes get in early and go home the same day. Staying at the hospital sucks but just one night wasn’t too bad, I was discharged at noon today.
On my left knee there’s nothing but X-rays, it was in bad enough shape that’s all that was needed, I had old MRIs, they couldn’t be found, but they had the old report that described a torn ACL, the original cause of the problem.
I will have in-home rehab for a couple of weeks and then it’s just however long it takes to be using the leg properly again. The doctor indicated it’s rarely less than 6 months before they’ll do a second knee. They don’t want to do 2 at once if one knee is usable because it will take much longer to recover from both of them being replaced at the same time. I am highly motivated to get up and on my feet again even though it will be painful to use my right knee until the replacement.
Thanks for the info. When I found out in December that I was going to need a replacement, I was getting ready to retire at the end of January. I was going to get it done in the spring. Yeah, best laid plans and all that.
I’m hoping to wait it out as long as I can. I had a cortisone injection a couple weeks ago and the knee felt good until yesterday. I’m hobbling today. But my experience is that it will hurt a while and then get better. At least so far.
My grandma got hers done in her 80s, first one knee and then, less than two weeks later, the other.
Her knees were awful by that point. For all intents & purposes they didn’t bend; she’d go up steps by awkwardly bending her back and twisting and flinging a leg up, and then lurching to get herself over it.
She recovered very quickly and with little postsurgical pain; it was so much less pain than she’d been in before the operation that she was out shopping and carring grocery bags up steps a week after getting both knees whacked.
It isn’t quite that easy and effortless for everybody. But as a baseline, it’s a good example because as I said, she was in her 80s at the time. It’s a surgery that the ortho people are good at and the folks who make the prosthetics are good at, and barring incidental complications it just works.
Glad to hear TKR just keeps getting better. I was told by an ortho five years ago that I’d probably be looking at needing a replacement within ten years.
I’ve had much pain in both knees for a long time, and finally had the right one replaced two years ago. I was in the hospital for a week, and in a rehab center for another week. There was very little pain for about ten months, then the pain started to return. Now the pain is almost as great as it was pre-surgery. And of course the left knee still hurts.
I did see the surgeon after the pain returned. He examined the knee and looked at the new x-rays, and said everything looks fine. I asked him, “How about the pain?” He said, “Take Tylenol.”
The left knee hurts when going up stairs; the right, going down.
I’ve had both knees replaced, years apart. The single most important piece of advice I received and will pass on - DO YOUR THERAPY EXERCISES! It will hurt to stretch those muscles. But you have a window of about a month to develop your full range of motion. You can build strength forever, but range of motion kind of gets locked in sooner. I think the target for full motion is 135 to 140 degrees. Get there! Good luck!
Thanks. I know stretching is going to be the toughest part, I have to do that slowly but very consistently to get it done, iow, working it several times a day instead of trying to do too much in one long session. I’ll need ice and heat wraps in between. And I need a lot of ice right now to get the swelling down.
My mother had total knee replacement a couple of years ago. The first (I think in the left leg) was almost pain-free but the second less so. So the pain levels vary, even with the same surgeon. But now she is very happy with the results (and she should have had the surgery when it was first recommended ten years prior). And I agree that it’s very important to do the physical therapy, both with the therapist and whatever they recommend you do on your own.
Also, I think it’s best not to think too much about what this surgery involves because when I do, I get grossed out.
My gf’s mom had TKR of her left knee about 4 years ago. She is 80 now and as happy as could be with the results. She had to push herself initially, but I kept encouraging her. Everything I’ve ever heard about TKR says that the harder you work in PT the better your final outcome.
Had a therapy evaluation yesterday, started the basic exercises. A lot of swelling still has to go down but it’s all where it would be expected. I have 85 degrees of motion already, but it’s clear it’s going to be painful to get past that. The doctor recommends using the painkillers to get through this, as noted above, time is of the essence.
I’ve had 'em both done and the worst part was finding a comfortable position in which to sleep for a couple of weeks. And I still can’t crawl on hard surfaces on my hands and knees.
After a week I’m doing pretty good. I can walk around unaided on flat surfaces, slowly getting the range of motion back. The swelling is annoying, I have ice on it any time I’m not on it, apparently it can take weeks for all that swelling to go away.
I thought knee scooters were for foot and ankle problems. They look like fun but I’d hate to be stuck on one.
I had a knee replacement over ten years ago and it’s still going strong. Just before the op my knee was acutely painful and I was increasingly reluctant to even walk the two hundred yards or so to the local shop. Two and a half months after I was able to walk two miles home in the snow with a stick. And the stick was gone soon after that.
The first few weeks were very hard though. I was one of the people who couldn’t lie flat after the op without agonising pain. I slept in a chair with the leg propped for about six weeks. I did my physio through the pain. I found it very helpful to either hold my partner’s hand or clutch my favourite soft toy - a little cat called Tiffany if you ask One thing that I found was that my progress wasn’t a steady progression but came as sudden breakthroughs. At first I was walking very very slowly on my crutches. One day I walked sloooowly to the shop then suddenly got into my stride on the way back and was able to go at a normal pace.
I got told off once at physio for still using my crutches. I had to explain that the previous week I’d been for a walk without them but the leg had swollen up again. So there may be setbacks.
All in all I’m very pleased to have had my knee replacement. I still have a bit of pain but it’s a one compared to the the six or more I was getting before.
It’s been 2 weeks now and until Friday everything was sailing smoothly. The swelling had gone down a lot and I was getting a lot of flexibility left in my ankle, doing my therapy exercises, and of course, I overdid it. Been in and out of pain since then. I’m sure this will pass but starting with the operation a lot of the old pain had gone away, it was something of a break and now it’s disappointing to be back in pain again.
I’m still doing well otherwise though, I’m ahead of schedule on everything, able to walk without a cane, 94 degree range of motion when they only expect 90 before removing the bandage, which they are supposed to do on Thursday. I understand after the bandage is off the therapy gets tougher, not fun to anticipate.
I figured it wouldn’t be easy but it’s good hearing how others made it through, though I’m sorry to hear about those with less than excellent results. There must have been so many lives ruined in the past from knee problems, pain filled lives with no hope for recovery.
Had my other knee replaced on Monday. I had a rapid recovery from the first knee operation back at the end of August (left knee). That was fortunate because in November my right knee, already injured and painful, became unstable. My left leg had to take over and it has held up well, much to my surprise because that knee was injured so long ago and I had lost a lot of strength on that side. I’m raring to go from this point on, I’ll start outpatient therapy next week. If it’s another rapid recovery I’ll be back on my feet in March. Seems like forever since I’ve been able to walk right.
One thing that I found was that my progress wasn’t a steady progression but came as sudden breakthroughs. At first I was walking very very slowly on my crutches. One day I walked sloooowly to the shop then suddenly got into my stride on the way back and was able to go at a normal pace.