Swollen knee

Stop overdoing it as you describe it. Listen to your knee. Swelling  is normal. There are ‘bits’ inside that have been surgically disturbed and have to be given time and coaching to start working together as a team again.

You have a prosthetic knee now and not a totally - as God intended- new knee.

you have to be patient allison, dont over do things, spread out your exercises, even take a day off, i take all day to do my exercises, .1 exerc repeated 10 times, then i have a 20 to 30 min rest then go on to the next exerc. icing in between, you have to take things easy, you will come good. hope this is helpfull

                               peter

Alison,  I am at 12 weeks and like you I have been measuring my swelling and the number has not decreased.  When I discussed this with my surgeon he said it could take up to a year for the swelling to go away.  But he did stress that overdoing it and increasing the swelling is not good and will slow my recovery.  

It is hard to slow down but if you don't, you will slow your recovery.  I don't think there are any shortcuts to recovering from TKR.

Here I am at 2 years when I over do it my knee swells sometimes worse then others. Not trying to be mean or even say the wrong thing the key is LOTS OF PATIENCE !!!! and exercise but do not over do it. When you go to far your knee will let you know in no uncertain terms its had enough. You asked about icing depending on how my knee is feeling I will ice it 5-6 x a day. Pain pills help but your only supposed to take them at certain times and sometimes depending on how it feels ice can really help. Another suggestion its not really going to medically help but it does help with pain is Bio - Freeze. I have used it frequently. Its a lotion that provides a nice cooling effect. As far as swelling cannot give you a answer I have the feeling I am always going to have some hopefully not as much as I have now.

Except for icing and not pushing the knee and causing additional swelling, you're done.  Even when I was at one year, sitting down in a pair or gym shorts I could see that the new knee was always a "tad" larger than the original.  At two years, I can't really tell the difference but I sense that it's still a little bit bigger.  My doc once said "You have a giant mechanical device implanted in your body.  What do you expect?"  You may ask some veterans of 5+ years; don't know if you'll get a different response.

Just know that the increased size caused by swelling could be very noticeable at the beginning and if you stress the knee to swell.  In time, that all goes away...very gradually.  IMHO, measuring it is a complete waste of time.  Big mechanical device...I don't think they will ever be perfectly identical.  Will one be incredibly noticeably different that the other?  In time, no but I think there will always be a slight difference.  Gotta ask the vets.  Small price to pay for walking without pain.

Hi all,thank you for all your supportive and helpful comments. I think the main message coming through was "patience". So i'll take that on board and try to remain optimistic.

I find the advice and support from this forum invaluable so thank you again. 

You may have a house to run but you must consider that you have to continue to just  ‘walk’ for longer in order to run. It is not a race.Their are no Brownie points. Oddly for me since I discovered this Patient discussion onn knee ops I have felt much improved. Probably because I am reading I’m not on my own. I have felt much improved over the last week actually.