training session for TKR

Angela

They will push you in the hospital.

The problems can start once you're at home...keeping up the exercises and working through the pain.

I started to see problems once I went back to work...sitting at a desk for any length of time is a killer...so I developed problems with straightening and had to have MUAs on both.

A lot of people probably sail through with little problem, but you won't see them on this forum.

Patsy

I think I have been lucky? with my PTs both in the hospital and now afterwards. No one pushed me, they encouraged. When I said I felt faint the PT stopped sat me down and called the nurse to do the BP which had really dropped. They let me be and came back in the afternoon to try again. I suppose like everything else it is luck of the draw. Please don't be bullied. It is a tough enough time as it is.

A lot of it depends on swelling as far as bend and straightening to 0 is almost an impossibility. This last one I had was the best ever and I was at 2. Just try and stay as relaxed as possible because being tense will only make it worse. I'm in the US and here the flex is not the rationale for the length of the hospital stay. The surgeons are most interested in infection and blood clotting as criteria for all decisions.

 On the CPM machine, it said 101 on about day 4 . .   Absolute lies of course!  i think it was around 70  . It's not that easy to measure without a goniometer . . or even with one!  In my case, they  kept me in for eight days because I couldn't move the leg, let alone get a 90 bend. . and I certainly couldn't go up or down stairs when they waved me on my way . .but some people can , and you may be one of them!. . My surgeon says everyone is different, different speed of healing, different reaction to meds etc. etc. . .If by really pushing you they mean putting you through absolute agony, or perhaps using very strong analgesics so you don't feel it, then they may reach 90 . . but you'll probably find after leaving hospital and the possibility of real pain killers, you will drop back to less bend. and personally, I wouldn't worry too much about tht. . provided you are constant, push yourself up to the pain thresshold, but not beyond it, you should get there in the end without too much trouble.  What you shouldn't do is ignore getting a good bend and extension waiting for the pain to subside. . .then you may find it very difficult, or impossible, to achieve it. . . .

On the third  day after the op the physio came and started bending my knee. . at that stage, all I had taken for pain was a parcetamol at 8 am, and it was not twelve O clock.  I'm afraid I wasn't prepared to accept that level of pain, so told her to leave me alone.  It is YOUR body, your decision, not theirs, don't let them bully you.