Have you had knee surgery?

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room At least it’s not all four, is it? I haven’t had it but I’ve heard the recovery is hard but the long term prognosis is good.

About 8 years ago I had a torn meniscus in my left knee repaired. This is not nearly as dramatic as a knee replacement, but still involved some significant pain for a few days after surgery. Two advices (if that’s a word):

- Thoroughly check out any potential surgeon before letting him or her touch you. Pretty easy to do in the internet age.
– There will likely be some kind of anesthetic floating around in your knee for a day or so after your surgery. Don’t let it fool you into thinking “Hey, this isn’t so bad”, and then happily dancing around the house without crutches. It will hurt enough after the anesthesia wears off. If you just walk around on it when it’s still numb, you will REALLY pay a painful price for it for a couple of days…

P.S. Nine months after my surgery, I ran a marathon with no issues at all. I hope that your surgical adventure goes as well.
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@janbb, by single, I meant the front two; double, all four. ;-)

One of my girlfriends is 70. She had double knee replacement on December 27, 2012, and was walking three days later. Her knees were bowed before the surgery and she walked with a horrible limp. She was bent over and used a cane. She was in constant pain. She is now standing straight and her knees are no longer bowed. She is riding a bike again!

She was nearly crippled before she had the surgery. In addition to the knee problems, it is important for me to say that she is a breast cancer survivor, double mastectomy, and has an 8 inch rod and six pins in her back. So with that said, you should know she refers to herself as “one tough hillbilly.” Your results may not be as good if you aren’t as determined and strong.

She thoroughly researched the surgeons in our area before making appointments and discussing the surgery. The surgeon who she picked didn’t interview with her until she passed his rigorous physical and interview with his PA. You have to be in excellent health, even down to your teeth, before the surgery. That means no infections of any kind.

About three days after the double knee replacement, she was sent to a physical rehab facility. It was suppose to be for two weeks, but she discharged herself after a week and went home. A physical therapist came to her house two days a week for three weeks. She had exercises to do and every night. Also, from day one of the surgery, she had to put her legs in the continuous passive motion machine. When she was sent home, she was set up with a walker, the CPM machine and a riser for her toilet.

She said she was amazed that the pain in her knees was gone the instant she awakened from the surgery. She will tell you she wishes she hadn’t wasted so many years of her life waiting to have the surgery. Her scars are so minute, it is really amazing.

My hubby had a knee replacement about 10 years ago. We were fortunate to find the doctor who invented the minimally invasive knee replacement and the tools to do it.
My husband had broken his knee and so he didn’t qualify for the minimally invasive procedure though. They made a special replacement just for him.
He was out of the hospital walking with a walker the next day, climbing the stairs of an airplane the day after that. A couple weeks with a walker then a couple weeks with a cane and then he was off to the races. It was super successful for him. It changed his life.
After the break he gained a lot of weight because of his decreased mobility (which made matters worse.) He now walks 3 miles a day and goes to the trainer 5 days a week.
I think finding the right doctor made all the difference in the world. The quack who did the first surgery really messed him up. Thank goodness we found this guy as it was just a series of coincidences that led us to him.

As of yesterday, I decided to postpone a full knee replacement for several months. I just had a second round of shots made from the comb of a rooster…Sinvisc.. .that will take the edge off for several months.

The small but real risks of infection, blood clots and possible embolism, and a slip or fall I find very terrifying. So I have decided to start a modest program of some Advil (with food) for several weeks and see what relief the shots and the Advil affords me.

I can do a lot of things and can accommodate the discomfort…stairs, levering myself in and out of chairs and cars. I use grab bars to pick up items off the floor, including little pellets of cat food and dead flies, and I now take the stairs two feet at a time.

I can do my exercise program every other day, am fine on level ground and can easily manage all the chores of daily living. New knees will not let me squat to garden, for example.

For those of you who have had it or whose friends have had it, when were you or they able to drive again?

My surgeon said 3 days in hospital and 10–14 days in an in-house rehab. program, if all goes well (ominous words). Since I live along, my daughter would come east from BC after I am released from rehab. But there’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip..

So I will be following this question with great interest.

@gailcalled, probably a good call to postpone it as long as possible. I hear that the recovery is much harder for women than men for some reason.
If I remember right, hubby drove within 2 weeks.

^^^Also much more onerous for knees than for hips. The doctor said several times that the surgery is very serious. However, he does 150 a year for a total of over 1000, and when asked about failures or flops, smiled slyly and said something reassuring but noncommittal..

There is a site somewhere that will give one any info on a particular doctor’s history of law suits or lack therein. I have to search around.

I’m texting my friend now, @gailcalled, to ask about when she drove. I know she drove her golf cart before she drove her car. We live in a golf cart community. Anyhow, she lives alone and she had me and her other friends catering to her every need. Ahh, she said three or four weeks before she drove the car.

Also, I think she used a site called “Health Grades,” to check out the surgeons. Another advantage for her was that we live in a very large retirement community so her network of word-of-mouth contacts is very vast.

This is the site, @gailcalled. Best wishes for all you considering the surgery.

My father had knee surgery a few months back. The doctor told him it would take a couple weeks before he could walk. He bought crutches just in case. I drove him home after the operation and before I knew it, I saw him walking outside in the garden without crutches, btw my dad is really stubborn lol. He said he felt great, but I think it was the drugs prescribed to him. He’s all good now and in good health, he said the hardest part is rehab and stretching. He’s 65 and goes to the gym 4–5 times a week, before that he never went. He plans to get surgery on his other knee now, he didn’t want to do both at the sametime, like you he was skeptical about it. He now believes it was the best investment he has made.

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room:

You sound as though you are having the same symptoms, diagnoses and advice about knee replacement as I am. Do you have the energy to share some details with us, who are probably in the same leaky boat?

I should also add that my hubby was in his early 50’s when he got his. The quack that did the emergency surgery said he had to wait because he was to young. We thought that it was better that he get it sooner while he was young enough to enjoy life. The inventor doctor agreed. He just went in for his 10 year check up and everything was perfect. The doctor said “see you in 5 years.”
In our case, waiting would have been a huge mistake.

http://www.fluther.com/77564/has-anyone-had-experience-with-knee-replacement-surgery-one-knee/

That’s the Q I asked several years ago and there are links to studies done regarding one at a time vs. both simultaneously.

(I’m not sure whether or not you’re aware that both Rarebear and gasman are real-life MDs so their info is authoritative, even tho neither is an Orthopedic Surgeon.)

And, I’m still putting it off as long as possible since I regard elective surgery as a last resort. Plus there are also other issues unrelated to the knees in my case.

I’ve had several courses of Synvisc with some positive response but not as much as I had hoped for. The last course several months ago was pretty disastrous (completely unlike the previous ones) so I’m extremely hesitant to try that again. Unless my Dr. comes up with a compelling reason or some assurance that their won’t be a repeat of same, I’m not planning on going thru that again.

So, basically now I’m just limping along :) Literally.

@Buttonstc: Re; disastrous last experience with Synvisc, can you provide details?

I am now on a regime of 4 (200mg) Advil a day, which does take the edge off. I have tried 2 and 2, twelve hours apart; today I am going to try 1 every 6 hours. It helps a bit and is ⅔ of the recommended maximum dosage. I am scrupulous about taking it in a food sandwich…eat some food, take the Advil, eat some more food. Banana is the easiest. Bite, bite…pill…bite, bite.

I also now take all stairs two feet at a time which also diminishes the discomfort.

Do you know about this grabber gadget? I keep on on each floor and use them for picking up things (socks, cat food pellets, dead flies, whatever), taking laundry out of the dryer, and getting things from high shelves.

I also no longer use the bottom shelf of my refrigerator or the bottom drawers of bureaus…less bending.

Here is a very good table of statistical complications from the surgery.

http://www.healthline.com/health/total-knee-replacement-surgery/statistics-infographic

95% generally happy is great, but 3.5 -5% having infections, blood clots and heart attacks is not very reassuring if you or I are among that group.

My Synvisc shots have been done in a series of three, each separated by a week. Six months later, another series.

Normally, there was occasionally some amount of pain in one or another knee depending upon the angle or placement of the needle (I guess) but basically tolerable and not both knees. Sometimes it was sore a bit the next day or so, but nothing alarmingly unbearable.

This last time, it wasn’t particularly painful in the office, but the next day, it was horrendous. I couldn’t walk without excruciating pain in BOTH knees and I immediately called the office (which I had never done in the 2–3 years prior).

I was convinced it must have been a bad batch of Synvisc or a severe allergic reaction and was really alarmed. I’m not the type to make mountains out of molehills, but this was also around the time that the news was just coming out about the tainted injectable steroid meds from that compounding Pharmacy which went all over certain parts of the country (Michigan was on the list of states with confirmed illness or deaths)

It was just so different from all the other times that I didn’t know what to think. Well, my Dr. reassured me it wasnt a bad batch of Synvisc and the usual advice about ice, etc etc.

Long story short, this lasted most of the week and it was The same story the next two times also. I haven’t developed any sudden allergy to eggs as I can eat them just fine so it’s the end of the line for me as far as the Synvisc is concerned,

It was really only about 20% successful anyway but I was willing to put up with the shots as long as it was basically bearable. But being out of commission for most of a week following each shot is just not worth it to me.

That’s not to say that this would ever happen with you, but at least if it does, you’ll know that a tainted batch is not the cause. (Synvisc comes straight from the manufacturer and is not being compounded by some hole in the wall unregulated Pharmacy owing its existence to a loophole in the FDA regulations.)

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room I haven’t had knee surgery so I’ve got no testimonial to offer & no answers to your questions about the recovery process. I have some info on the single vs. double issue, however, that I’ve picked up working in hospitals.

Bilateral (left + right, “double”) total knee arthroplasty / replacement is done in a single operation relatively infrequently. Patients who need both knees operated on usually have separate unilateral surgeries, staged at least 6 or 8 weeks apart (2 hospital admissions). No doubt practices vary geographically (I can only speak for where I live) as well as among individual orthopedic surgeons, each of whom ultimately makes the call with you individually. Perhaps your hospital can provide some statistics on how many of each kind they did last year.

There is data suggesting that bilateral surgery might be riskier, but I think the jury’s still out on that issue. Either way the risks are pretty low, I think. There should be a frank discussion of risks with the surgeon, taking into account your particular medical condition. Hope that helps.

@gasman: My orthopedic surgeon (1500 knee replacements in the past 10 years) makes that part of the decision easy.

He will only do one knee at a time and not less than a year apart. He practices in a sophisticated medical center in Western MA. in the Berkshires.