How was your TKR procedure done?

I thought it might be interesting to see what the different techniques are currently around the World and within each Country. If you reply please can you state which Country you are in.

So here in Essex in the UK my surgeon's approach was:-

A spinal anaesthetic with a level of sedation of my choice - which was sleep, at least till near the end ! Interesting to wake up and hear them talking about closing up the wound and golf, a conversation I joined in. I believe he also injects the joint with something like the dental numbing drug Lidocaine. So it took under two hours and I was wheeled back to the ward after an X-ray. I felt great but slightly unnerved by being paralysed from the waist down. This gradually went away in the next couple of hours. No catheter so a bit of temporary loss of bladder control but a small price to pay. There must have been some sort of "high" drug in the mix because that night I got no sleep as I was so euphoric about getting through the op and had no pain. I was kept in for a further two days till I could get down stairs on crutches. Pain management was basically, Paracetamol, Ibuprofen and Cocodeine taken together every four or maybe six hours. Pain was never unbearable, just uncomfortable with some loss of sleep at night at first but not too drastic. 

Dave

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