Total Knee Replacement.

hi Robin, is Tramadol all you take. I have some doc gave me but made me nauseous also the liqui morphine. Am frightened to take it. I eiither lie awake with a he pain or if I take them I'm awake bein I'll. I take codeine paracetamol & ibuprofen. Good luck 

Hi Eileen,  no after 2 weeks I stopped the Percocet and started Vicodin.  I take 2 before PT and 1 other days then take Tramadol before bed.

my doctor is not keen on pain meds.  Maybe if you took nexum before taking Tramadol it would help.  

Damn these doctors who are 'Not keen on pain meds"  I have little doubt they would change their minds if one day they needed a TKR.

 

I agree.  My doctor does have a bad knee so he might have to have a TKR on day.  😊

LOL hope so!~  I do not understand why pain medication exists if doctors will not prescribe it.  there are not many things more painful than a TKR . . .and the exercises are much more difficult to do without adequate pain control, making the whole operation pretty useless if extreme pain stops patients from achieving the bend and extension needed.  It is not that easy to give up drugs like tramadol, but it's not impossible either, and doctors can always stop prescribibng it if a patient goes on taking it for too long. . . 

While what you say is pretty true for most of us, I have been reading of some people who have a totally different experience.  one lady was back to leading hiking groups at thirteen weeks in the Italian Alps . . . I know, seems impossible to most of us mere mortals, but no reason to believe she was lying!  regarding agony at PT, I refused to go down that route.  I decided to do it on my own, and only ever went up to the 'OUCH dammit that hurts' stage, rather than the literal scream that the physio wanted to evoke.  Maybe I was a bit slower, but I am now at 0 extension, and 135 bend, which is OK for me.  I don't hold with accepting too much pain!

 

If we look at recovery times as a normal bell curve distribution (not saying it is but humor me), then 95% of us fall within two standard deviations from the mean.  For argument's sake, let's say that those two standard deviations run from a 6-month recovery to a 12-month recovery with the mean at 9 months.  That leaves the other 5% at 3 or more SDs from the mean (2.5% lower than 6 months / 2.5% higher than 12 months).  These are the "outliers".  Every distribution has some.

On the left side, are the 13-week mountain climbers while the 18-month recoveries are at the far right side.  All understandable...all part of a normal statistical bell curve distribution.  Think...smoking will eventually kill you.  Proven fact...but not for everyone.  I had a 103-year old great-uncle who smoked his little black cigars every day and never got lung cancer.  Outlier.  

The thing to remember is that this 5 % are the exceptions and NOT THE RULE!  The rest of us mortals are stuck in the 95% umbrella and have to deal with real life.  I have pity for those at the far right end of the curve...they need to be brave souls...

Hi

I was the same did not do too much exercise as pain too great, so did my own thing which also worked out for me as well.

good healing

I am grateful to have been somewhere in the middle!  A slow starter, definitely . .stuck in hospital for twelve days . . but by six weeks was walking 2 kms a day, not without pain.  I still find it hard to believe there really are people like the Swiss Alps hike leader, or the 80 year old operated just before me, in the same hospital and by the same surgeon, who left hopsital on day three with NO crutches. . .  

I hesitate to advocate it, as perhaps there are some people who could risk getting an optimum result by not going down the agony route. .. but like you, it worked for me!  I think all this talk some surgeons have of a 'six week window' within which you HAVE to get to a specific bend is a bit of an exaggeration.  But perhaps for people with excessive growth of scar tissue it could be true. . . All different!

Your text made me lol, but thanks for the info lincs, they're great 

https://patient.info/forums/discuss/two-guys-with-canes-limp-into-a-bar--534980

 

thanks for that Jeanenp ,sounds good .ii'll contact doc.