Preparing for knee surgery next Monday

[MossRoad]

Good luck! My father-in-law had his knee done well over 10 years ago. He still mows his lawn a couple times a week with a walk behind mower.... he's almost 89! :thumbsup:

 

[RSKY]

Good for him. My father-in-law had both shoulders replaced at 85 and 86 years of age. His were so bad he had to use both hands to put a fork of food in his mouth. He was in constant pain. The same doctor doing my knee did his shoulders. He now mows his yard with a zero turn and weed eats. They did a "reverse replacement". Instead of the ball being on the arm and the socket on the shoulder it was reversed. They had to do this because there was nothing left to attach anything too. His rotator cuffs were completely gone.

 

[Turbys_1700]

Good luck with your surgery. I am losing weight so I can have a hip and knee replacement. Planning on a January surgery date. Have lost 50 plus pounds and want to lose 30 more.

 

[MossRoad]

Good for him. My father-in-law had both shoulders replaced at 85 and 86 years of age. His were so bad he had to use both hands to put a fork of food in his mouth. He was in constant pain. The same doctor doing my knee did his shoulders. He now mows his yard with a zero turn and weed eats. They did a "reverse replacement". Instead of the ball being on the arm and the socket on the shoulder it was reversed. They had to do this because there was nothing left to attach anything too. His rotator cuffs were completely gone.

YIKES!

About 10 years ago his wife, my mother-in-law, and he were putting up Christmas lights. Mom was coming down the ladder and thought she was on the last step, stepped off hard, only to find she was on the 2nd step.... snapped the ball of her femur. OUCH!!!! Bone was too damaged to set as a broken bone, so she had a partial hip replacement. If it wasn't for her liver transplant 8 years ago, she'd be getting around fine on that leg! :laughing:

 

[spitter]

Had knees done 5 years ago both at the same time .Best thing I ever did !!:cool2:Carpenter by trade played hocky and lax power lifted till I was 48.Knee problems all my Life .Thought I was going to get knee scraped. But the surgen said u r bone on bone no cartlidge what so ever.Right knee wore in so much my right leg was 1" shorter. Best advice I was given was to train aggressively on rehab .Push your self to stay on the machine as much as possible .[knee excisixeor].Walk AS much as possible .People who just sat there and didn't do the rehab took twice as long to recover. everyone would say how can u do that ant u in pain.No wheres near where I was beforethe operation.Take the pain killers.When your in pain u cant train right .They let me out of rehab 2 weeks early because I trained hard . Had as much bend in knee as I was going to get.One month latter Iwas back to work climbing scaffolds ladders .:cool2::drink:

 

[Garandman]

Had both knees replaced June 2015, same time. Spent three days in hospital and 12 in rehab. What they don't tell you is the primary dangers are blood clotting and infection, so picking the best hospital is key, then find a practitioner there. My surgeon did 7 knees that week.

BTW they will probably give you opioids. I only took them when doing physical therapy the first few days. For me Tylanol and ice worked just as well. I kept the prescription locked in a safe.

It's important to do the exercises because your range of motion is so diminished by the worn joint. My original left knee would only bend to 100. I got 110 on the replacement pretty quickly and a friend urged me to keep going. He has 145 degrees, I'm at 130 or better in both. Still doing exercises every day. An exercise bike really helps, pretty cheap off CL. It's not the knee joint that's stiff, it's the muscles and other connective tissue.

It's important to pick a top specialist. Had my knees done at New England Baptist, an orthopedics-only hospital. About 30% of their surgeries are repairs of surgeries done elsewhere. I met people there from Maine to Florida.

The swelling can be bad. Knee surgery is more like carpentry than surgery, so your body responds to the trauma. My swelling peaked at 6 days.

I play hockey 3 times a week in season at Redford Arena in an Over 60 league. About a third of the guys here have had 1 or BOTH knees replaced and also hips (a bad knee usually causes unusual loads on a hip joint). And they skate better than me.

Champions. Three knees and a hip between us. Hockeytown, Melrose MA.

 

[Garandman]

I'm sure some doctors are better than others, just as some hospitals are better than others. I didn't really do much "research" about the doctor and hospital that I used for my right knee replacement, but I did ask the doctor how many knee replacements he had done and he said, "More than a thousand."

That's really, really important. Even in a place like MA with a lot of top notch hospitals, you go to New England Baptist or Mass General. That's where the top practitioners are.

Got a small infection at the top of one of the stitches after a week at home and they had me back in the hospital, put me antibiotics, put me out and checked the internal stitches. They're fanatical about infection.

 

[Bird]

We all seem to agree that you need a surgeon with lots of experience. So how does a new doctor get that experience?:laughing:

 

[Turbys_1700]

My selected surgeon has performed over 1200 hip and knee replacements to date. The week I spoke with him he had performed 6. A lady my wife works with is scheduled for hip replacement next month with him. He told her that in over 1200 procedures he's had 1 infection, 1 blood clot, and 1 dislocation. Pretty good odds. The other surgeon I tried to get an appointment with has done over twice that many. He's booked solid for 3 months on appointments.

To answer your question Bird this practice makes an effort to promote fellowship trained surgeons. Both of the surgeons I am referring to are fellowship trained so I guess that gives them added experience in the field.

Ten or so years ago a respected surgeon in our area wanted to replace my knee. If I would have let him do it I probably would have saved my hip. But I deferred since I was only 45 at the time. Did not want to go through it again if possible. Since then he had moved on and I had another surgeon picked out, excellent, well respected, and he left the practice. Talked to another one in this group with lots of experience. He is very good IMHO but he was very rude and curt. Chastised me about my weight. I know I'm too fat. Been fighting weight all my life and didn't need him to remind me over and over. No problem.

My current surgeon is an ex football jock who has issues with his weight and he is much more understanding. After further research his reputation and record is much better than the other surgeon I talked to so I am confident in his abilities. I've been swimming for the past 7 months and the weight is coming off. Starting league bowling last night and did OK. My BMI is down to 40 from over 48.5 in February. Hope to be in the 30 to 35 range by surgery time.

 

[dmccarty]

We all seem to agree that you need a surgeon with lots of experience. So how does a new doctor get that experience?:laughing:

By doing surgery when supervised by a very experienced surgeon? :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan