For those of you who’ve had knee replacement surgery, how long was your recovery? How long till you could walk normally? When did the pain stop? How soon could you drive? Are there still things you can’t do? Any other issues or advice?
A friend is recovering from this right now. One week, she was limping around with a walker. Three weeks, walking with a slight limp, not bending it going up & down stairs. Four weeks, she could drive. She does PT 3x a week and takes pain pills for that, otherwise just an occasional glass of wine. Apparently she will never ski or play tennis again:( but she will be able to walk & hike without pain.
My husband’s experience: Sure, the incisions hurt, but his knee felt better when he woke up from surgery than the before he went into the operating room. He was up and walking the next morning, and the therapist had him going up and down stairs before he was released from the hospital four days later. In-home physical therapy for about three weeks post-op, and then 3x per week for the next three months. He could drive at about 4 weeks.
His advice: don’t punk out on therapy, but take your pain meds in time for them to help you through the sessions. You’ll need them. There’s a passive therapy machine that slowly bends and straightens the leg - I forget what it’s called - but ask that it be used ASAP after surgery. It helps. If you can, get one of those sets of bike pedals that sit on the floor, and use them a bit on days in between therapy. And the surgery is totally worth the effort. He dreaded it, but isn’t dreading the inevitable one on his other knee.
Good luck!
Bumping this, in case non-night-owl Dopers with first-hand (first-leg?) experience care to weigh in. Also to add that, I spoke to my aunt today. She was a total crybaby about actually doing the physical therapy after her replacement surgery, and regrets that. She echoes my husband’s advice of “Just take a pain pill an hour ahead and push through the PT. It’s worth it.” Aunt Rose had to spend 6 weeks in a nursing home post-surgery, instead of going home 4-5 days later, because she was such a wimp. Two years later, though, she’s glad she had the replacement. It has been the difference between literally sitting on the sidelines vs. hiking, riding horses, dancing, and enjoying her granddaughters.
My 72 year old father just had a double knee replacement 7 weeks ago. He’d put it off for years so the immense relief after the surgery totally motivated him to do the PT no matter how aggravating it was. He did them both together because he figured he’d wuss out after seeing how much it hurt and never get the second one done.
Getting into/out of the shower for the first week or two post surgery was tricky. He was very concerned about slipping, and there’s just no way to get in and out of a tub without bending the knees quite a bit. He admits this would have been easier with only one knee recovering at a time, though.
He was walking with a walker for a week, then a cane for another week. Carried the cane around for a few extra weeks, but didn’t rely on it. As long as he was careful and mindful of what he was doing, he was fine. Forgetting and making sudden moves, not so fine. He was going up and down stairs unassisted by week three.
His doc okayed him for driving pretty quickly, with the caution that he shouldn’t drive for long stretches. As long as he got out and walked around and did some stretching once an hour, he felt fine.
He tried to limit his intake of pain meds, for fear of dependency or whatever. It took nearly a month of bad sleepless nights for us to get through to him that he should dose up before going to bed. You can remember not to move this way or that while awake, not so much once you’re asleep and he’d wake himself up gasping in pain from a wrong motion. Once he started taking the recommended amount before going to sleep, he got much better rest.
It’s called a CPM (continuous passive motion) machine. It’s pretty standard at the hospital I work
If you’ve got options on where you have the procedure done I’d advise checking out facilities as much as mds. A hospital or branch of a hospital that is dedicated to orthopedic surgeries can often provide more consistent care than somewhere where you’ll be placed with more varied surgeries. Also, they often have lower incidences of infection which is a big deal if it occurs in a joint or bone postoperatively. The other posters are right on with the physical therapy. It should not be excruciating but will require some self will to participate fully (plus narcotics for most people).
You should get organized & comprehensive preoperative teaching, either from the hospital or MD. We’ve got an actual class that patients are expected to go to previous to surgery. How to prepare, what to expect before & after surgery & when you go home.
Thank you ballardfam! I couldn’t for the life of me think what that machine was called! Mr. Matata’s surgery was at a large teaching hospital with a dedicated orthopedic ward, but for some reason, the CPM wasn’t used until about four days post-op. In your experience, would it have helped to use it sooner? (The surgeon seemed to think so, and seemed surprised that it wasn’t used immediately after surgery.)
Also, be prepared to “lose” a day or three, thanks to good narcotics. When Tony had his surgery, we had a two-month-old baby, so I didn’t spend all day every day at the hospital. He has no recollection of me visiting, even though we did at least a couple of hours daily.
And finally, I can’t emphasize enough: don’t abuse the prescribed pain meds, but please use them before therapy sessions. At least enough to take the edge off the inevitable pain. They will help you participate fully and recover mobility soonest. Toughing it out is just masochism, and doesn’t help unless you have a history of dependency.
Continuous Passive Motion; a friend who had both her knees done last year had this both times.
She was initially told that she’d be out of work for 3 months with knee #1 but wound up staying out only 6 or so weeks. She’d had pretty significant knee pain for years at that point and found things to be MUCH better afterward - so much so that in fact she had the second one done just 6 months later. She regretted waiting so long.
She was in her mid 50s at the time. I don’t know how significant her pain was, I’m know she had narcotic pain relief for a few weeks but I don’t know how strong it was, or how much she needed.
This is slightly off the main topic but I’ve just recently found that NSAIDs (ibuprofen, Aleve etc.) can interfere with healing a broken bone. Whether the same holds true with a knee replacement, I don’t know, but it would be worth asking the doctor about, when you’re ready to graduate from the narcotics to non-opiate stuff.
Oh yeah. And even before the therapy, don’t stint on them or try to wait until you’re in a lot of pain; heading it off at the pass will work a LOT better than trying to tough it out. There’s no reason to be “heroic”. I think the physical stress of dealing with pain impedes healing, personally (no cite for that though).
I just talked to my friend, who is now in week 6 post-replacement. She can bend her knee 90 degrees but no further, she can put weight on it when going up and down stairs, but she’s a little bit afraid to. She is still having pain but it isn’t joint pain, it’s tissue pain/scar pain and not joint pain as before the surgery, and also less frequent.
But anyone contemplating this kind of surgery should talk to their doctor about it. Her specific problems may not be everybody’s. On this knee she already had two prior surgeries which could have complicated the surgery and complicated the recovery. She got 6 weeks off work but went back half-time after three, with the knee up and iced, but she has a desk job. If you were a roofer you’d probably want three months, if you could even go back at all.
Thanks, everyone, for your responses. I’m in the process of switching knee doctors, and won’t be seeing the new one for 2 weeks. I’m hoping I can have the surgery as soon as possible. I’m in so much pain, I wish I could have it done today.
But there’s a problem with timing. In the near future, probably in the spring or summer, I’ll be having open-heart valve replacement. I don’t want to be recovering from two different surgeries at the same time, and obviously the heart surgery has to take precedence. So I’ll need my knee to be totally healed by then. I think if I can schedule the knee surgery soon enough, and the heart surgery late enough, I’ll be ok.
I had my left knee replaced 2 years ago this Jan. There are no words that describe how much this has changed my life for the positive. The experiences described above are pretty much in line with my own. The only thing I can add is to try to find a doc that does this every day. My doc does over 400 per year. It really put my mind at ease.
This forum was a pretty good source of first-hand info.
I’ve had both knees patella tendon reattachment… I admit the idea of a knee replacement scares the hell out of me. It’s caused me to get my butt in the gym five days a week and to drop 15lbs… (was 245-250 now 230-235)
Physical therapy is a must… to everyone out their… down wimp out on it… gut it out… it means everything… (Other than a good Ortho LOL)
Slightly off-topic – my sister is having hip replacement surgery in a month. Similar?
My father had one of his knees replaced (along with a hip and two elbows, one twice). It was definitely tough, but even then he managed and got around well enough. And this was way back in the day, before effectve therapy and with the constant problem of hemophilia hindering recovery.