What do you wish you had known before your TKR?

Hi Cheryl-- my doctor never told me much about the surgery. He only told me that I would be all right in a couple of months. To me the surgery was the worse pain I ever had in my life. I had no problems sleeping the pain medicine allowed me to fall asleep at night. However, I would stay up during the day. Only on rare occasions that I would take a nap during the day. Plus I had PT everyday at the hospital. J21370

Top 3 things I wish I could have prepared for:

1. NO SLEEP! Still none at 10 weeks!!

2. ANXIETY! Worry about meds, ROM, progress, depression...

3. LENGTH OF RECOVERY TIME! s. l. o. w.

But having said that, I'm finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. This might actually be a good thing. God is good. This forum is good. My Norco is good. Haha.

I was under the illusion that since I was in very good physical shape and my knee not that damaged, that my recovery should be relatively easy.  I expected to be back to "normal" in 4-6 weeks.  What a mistake.  I wasn't prepared to be essentially paralyzed and have to spend the next month rebuilding some semblance of muscle tone.  Also, recovery is glaciallly slow with it being difficult to note progress week to week much less day to day.  It is extremely depressing knowing that this can drag on for months or more.  The inability to sleep due to discomfort and the constant feeling of exhaustion only contribute to the depression.  Make sure you have a long term support system going into this surgery for it is a marathon recovery that will take all the strength that you have.

I wish I had know the lifelong consequence of pain if something went wrong. We all are hoping for pain relief and sometimes you come out worse than you went in.Glad that it works well the majority of the time....I will have to do the other knee. Yes, I am changing surgeons.

I thought I was fully prepared for this surgery. I took four months to really dial in my nutrition and strength conditioning.  I have had multiple rotator cuff surgeries so thought I was ready because I knew about pain associated with surgery and the rehab that follows.  Wrong.  First they released me from the hospital when I told them my pain wasn't controlled. After I was home the pain meds they gave me didn't seem to work well so no sleep post operative depression and an overall not feeling well. It's been a month and off all pain meds.  I am just so suprised I still feel like this but according to what I've read on this site all these things are common and 3-6 months all is much better. You're wise to get as much information as you can