Knee Replacement Surgery Risks? - Aging Issues Message Board

YadaYada · 05-29-2002, 02:24 PM

Has anyone had this done? My 51 y/o husband is going to have it done soon. He is extremely out of shape and overweight. I am insisting that he have a pre-op physical, including chest x-rays and a stress test. He's also taking iron pills so he can donate his own blood before the surgery, but I'm worried about him. He has the mental / emotional processess of a 15 year old (young thinking & feeling) and the body of Bob Hope's father (Bob Hope just turned 99).

The doctor said he will be in the hospital for 3 days, then to a rehab hospital for 4 days, then home where he has to work out every day and come in for therapy at least twice a week.

The doctor also said it will be quite painful and will take the better part of a year (9-12 months) before he is healed, and the knee replacement will only last 8 - 10 years with light use (not a lot of walking/flexing)

Has anyone had this? What is the recovery really like? What are the risks?

Lady^ · 06-13-2002, 09:08 AM

Well, my sister had this done last fall and honestly it was pretty bad. She was in terrible pain for the first month or so...she had a therapist come to her house a few days a week for physical therapy and that was really painful.

She also had a small piece of bone floating around in there, and they had to go back in and remove it a few months later. She is having problems now again, and is in a knee brace. Her docs can't figure out what is wrong but her knee is swollen and hurting her alot.

I would like to add that my sister has had quite a few surgeries and seems to always have problems afterwards. I think many people have very good results once the initial trauma and pain are over with.

Please do a bit of research on staph infections if you're not familiar with them. They are very dangerous and tend to like to infect joints. I'm not trying to scare you. My mother had ankle surgery last year and got a staph infection and almost died. She ended up having part of her ankle bone removed. After the surgery she kept telling her doctor that her leg was fire-engine red, sore, swollen...more than she thought it should be. He just dismissed her until it was too late and the infection had moved in and made itself at home. If your husband has any kind of immune system impairment I would talk to the surgeon ahead of time about putting him on preventive anitbiotics immediately after the surgery.

Good luck to your husband.

drs · 06-13-2002, 11:05 AM

My mother was the first one to have both knees replaced at the same time in our town hospital. And yes it was very painful. All bone surgeries are.
I was her caretaker after the surgery. Every day I would go to the hospital. She was in for 13 days, this was back in 1987, she was only 57 yrs old at the time. She's had those knees for 14 yrs. so far...
At the hospital I would go to physical therepy with her so I'd know what to do after the surgery. We didn't go to a phsical therapist at all after leaving the hospital, but that was quite afew years ago too. She was walking with a cane, in 6 weeks, and shortly after that, no cane at all. The doctor said it was the fastest recovery that he'd ever seen. He contributed this to the fact that she couldn't baby either one of her legs and was faithful on doing the excersizes. So when your hubby has it done it's very important to keep it mobile! It's hurts like heck, but if you keep it moving... the faster the recovery. I between doing the perscribed excersizes, my mother sat in a chair that would move back and forth. A glider or rocking chair. This always kept the knees in motion. How heavy is your husband. My mother was over weight too, but that was mainly do to not be able to get around before the surgery. (oh, and being pregnant 16 times, and a diabetic)

She is so happy that she had them both done at the same time! And do watch for infection, I've heard something about total knee replacements being easy to get infected. Good luck to your husband,and to you since I'm sure you'll be putting in some overtime to help with his excersizes. Drink plenty of water, this has a stress reducing quality to it. Take Care, and I hope you have an excellent doctor. We did. Diana

Fancynancy1 · 06-22-2002, 12:25 PM

Hi! I am a 70-yr. old widow who has had two TKRs (Total Knee Replacements)in two years. After about 15 years of pain and crippling in both knees, and having tried just about every NSAID in the book, I had a series of SynVisc injections in my left knee.

Because I had literally NO cartilage left in either knee, the SynVisc was an expensive and useless idea. It didn't work. So, later that year (2000), I had the left knee replaced. I donated three pints of my own blood, had a complete evaluation by a Physical Therapist who taught me how to walk with a walker and a cane, and how to exercise my leg, and a full explanation of the risks of the surgery, the most important being the risk of infection.

I lifted leg weights before the surgery to build up my quadriceps muscles. I came out of surgery in very little pain. The few days that I spent in the hospital were almost pain free because of the patient-administered morphine pump. Soon they switched me to Oxycontin pills which were a marvelous help, even through the physical therapy in the hospital. I did not go to a rehab. facility, but went immediately home where I had a physical therapist come in three times a week, and an RN twice a week. I had been switched to Percodan on my release from the hospital.

Within two weeks I was off the walker and on a cane, and four weeks after that I went back to work without the cane. Because I was faithful in my physical therapy exercises, I had unbelieveable flexion in my knee. Everyone was totally shocked and thrilled at my progress.

The following year I had the right knee done, and had the same great results. I wish I had done all of this sooner. I am now in virtually no pain, and only take an Aleve now and then for stiffness, but I exercise faithfully by walking a mile a day and lifting ankle weights plus working out with hand weights each day and doing yoga for relaxation.

I feel as though I have a new lease on life. But my story may not be your story. My orthopedist tells me that on a scale of 100, 10% of his TKR patients LOVE their knees, 10% HATE them, and the remaining 80% aren't totally happy or totally disappointed...they shrug and say, "I guess I can live with it." I just was very lucky to be in the 10% who love their knees.

You do have to remember that you must take antibiotics before any invasive medical procedure, or after any deep cut or even before dental procedures. Apparently, infection is often automatically drawn to the replacement area, and this would mean a reopening of the incision, and a long painful therapy to rid the knees of the infection from the bone on out to the surface. If this doesn't work, the replacement must be removed, and then the knees must be healed before a whole new replacement/s is put in again.

Exercise, no matter how painful, is a must, too. After I went back to work I went to a Sports Medicine Physical Therapy clinic to work my knee out three times a week. I gritted my teeth, (actually the exercises were not unbearably painful), and forced myself to do even the most painful of the exercises, knowing that I wanted to get back to normal knees as soon as possible. It wasn't that difficult to do. I always felt so much more mobile afterwards and had a positive adrenaline rush because of my progress.

Obesity is a dangerous problem, also, because extra weight contributes to extreme pressure on the joints. Losing weight before surgery and keeping it off afterward would be a must.

Well, I hope all goes well for your husband and for anyone else on this board who is facing TKR. Let us know how everything has turned out.

Nancy

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~~Love is the Hardest Lesson~~ -Wm. Penn