What do you wish you had known before your TKR?

1. My doctor's home phone number so I could have harassed him 24 x 7.

2. Armed?  Beretta 92FS with an SGS Compensator.  One round to his kneecap.

Great question, i think knowing that there would be a bit of a low period around six to eight weeks, and to fix my mind and expectations more on the three to four month mark in terms of feeling able to move forwards more rapidly!

What happens if you don't get a TKR?  I really don't want to go through it - have been losing weight (wasn't heavy) and now I'm going to get a referral to a knee specialist to see about shots.

My mother's friend had the TKR and was in agony for months.  That was a total 'scare-off' for me.  We had no arthritis in the family and when my mother was my age (63) she was playing tennis, walking, etc.  Life, of course, isn't fair.

I had LOTS of swelling with my first TKR...I mean LOTS and LOTS of swelling! 😲That plus the feeling that my entire leg FELT as though it was A TREE TRUNK FILLED WITH CEMENT really unnerved me those first three months! 🌴

I didn't have nearly as much pain as I thought I might have with this surgery.😄 This made me realize the TORTURE I had been enduring with my pain PRIOR TO SURGERY! 😖😨😵

On the second morning following my first TKR I was sitting in a chair. Sitting in that chair was EXHAUSTING compared to laying in bed. That surprised me. Then when the hospital physical therapist came and wanted me to "march my feet up and down" as I was sitting in the chair, I realized that the most I could lift my THOUSAND POUND LEG was to lift MY TOES!😖 For a second there I panicked, wondering if he was KIDDING or if he really DID mean that I was actually EXPECTED to do this! My silliness kicked in, though, and I began to giggle!😁 I "marched" my TOES. (Never saw THIS GUY again. I think he though I was a lunatic!)

I was surprised how ineffective Oxycodone and Hydrocodone were for pain management. I was also surprised at HOW LOOPY they made me feel. I had Oxycodone with my first TKR and Hydrocodone with my second TKR three and a half months later. In two weeks I quit each after my blood thinner shots were completed. I went back to my tried and true Ibuprofen which did a MUCH, MUCH better job of pain management for me.

My biggest overall surprise was that my second TKR, which was on my worst knee of the two, was EASY compared to my first TKR! I was moving my leg all around IN THE RECOVERY ROOM and discharged a day earlier than with my first TKR. From the get-go it seemed like I was almost even in recovery with my first knee which had been done three and a half months earlier. A HUGE and WONDERFUL surprise!😊👍👍

In reading all the responses in this forum over the last two years I have come to realize that there's NO PREDICTING exactly how a TKR is going to go. Maybe that's why doctors don't TELL US much! There are SO MANY variables, so many different body systems involved. Even my surgeon who has done thousands of knee replacement surgeries in his thirty-year career has said that a surgeon can look at X-rays, CT scans, MRIs etc., but he WILL NOT KNOW exactly what needs to be done UNTIL HE GETS IN THERE and looks for himself. Then there is the recovery. Each recovery is different. I have NO IDEA why my worst knee with the longer surgery of three and a half hours had such a short recovery time compared to my first knee. I guess we just deal with each situation as it comes and accept it for what it is!

I WILL say, though that ALL OF IT was worth it for me! Keeping a positive outlook and PRAYER, constant PRAYER were my ARMOR!🙏😄 I looked for small improvements, tried to distract myself by walking around the inside of the house, venturing outside to enjoy my garden, working hard to become stronger with better balance and kept a journal so I could keep a permanent record of my progress. All of these things helped to get my life back again.

There's no silver bullet to make everything perfect, but there's TIME and PATIENCE and HOPE.

Here's wishing these things for ALL OF US!??