What Made You Decide to Have Knee Replacement?
I had a meniscus repair on my right knee in July 2009 and my surgeon told me my knee replacement was going to be sooner rather than later. After trying synvisc shots in Sept and getting no relief, and the pain getting worse and getting to the point of not being able to sleep because of every move I made woke me up in horrible pain, we scheduled my surgery for December 2009.
What Were You Not Prepared For?
I had some complications, my ligaments kept stretching and wouldn't support my new knee and 3 days after surgery I dislocated my new knee. They took me back to surgery and put me out to fix the dislocation and they couldn't get it stabilized so I spent the next couple of days not being able to get out of bed. On day 5 after my first surgery I was back in surgery and they had to replace my first knee with one that didn't require my ligaments for stabilization. The first surgery I had they gave me a nerve block so my knee felt really good with little pain and was easy to control with pain meds. I didn't have the block with the 2nd surgery and was unprepared how badly it hurt. It took several days of experimenting with the pain meds to get the pain under control. I was prepared to spend 4 to 5 days in the hospital and ended up spending 10 days including Christmas in the hospital. Also because of the complications it made my recovery go a lot slower. the Dr. said it would be about 6 weeks off from work and it ending up being over 2 months and then I had to go back slowly and work my way up to an 8 hour day and I have a desk job.
Lessons Learned
- I had done alot of research before and knew what it was going to take rehab wise.
- Make sure you have someone home to help take care of you the first couple of weeks, as you can't do much on your own.
- Do everything your doctor and physical therapist tell you to or you will set yourself back. I tried to do to much to soon and set my recovery back several weeks.
- I am now 10 months post surgery and am so glad I had it done. I hardly have any pain, it still hurts a little if I try to do so much, but my Dr. told it would take at least a year to totally heal and for me the complications could make it longer.
