Aftercare from a TKR

Good evening, @upgirl2013. Welcome home, and welcome to Connect. Now...that's the way to handle TKR surgery. Congratulations. I hope your at-home post-surgery experience is continuing to be successful. Your experience will help others overcome issues about hotel room care and long drives. Who helped you work out the details? The surgical center and the hotel? It appears that you could walk reasonably well in just two days.

I do have a couple of questions that popped into my mind. 1. Do you have to return to the surgery center for follow-up care? 2. Did you complete the six weeks of pre-surgery exercise in preparation for the TKR? I also noticed that you remembered to ice your knee while traveling. Did you use a special ice brace?

Is it safe to assume that you chose this program because you live out in what I would call the boondocks? I had my first TKR at a desert location. My home was on a mountain above 6,000 feet altitude. That situation did present some problems with medication, especially pain meds.

I know other Connect members will be interested in your recovery.

May you be safe, protected, and free of inner and outer harm.
Chris

The surgeon’s office set up the hotel and home care. I am responsible for the in person appointments.
I decided to stay at hotel with breakfast. My husband was able to bring me scramble eggs to take my medications with.
I chose this surgeon but doing research and interviewing his staff.
My pre surgery workouts included swimming, weight training, pilates and walking.
My muscles were more than ready to support the new knee. The admitting nurse discussed the importance of a healthy diet, water and proper protein habits.
My three week visit will be virtual and at that time I will be able to take off the large piece of plastic wrap over the incisions.
I used a gallon baggie full of ice for the care ride home. I now use an ice machine.

Thank you, you have been really informative. I will have a 8 hour ride home after surgery so will be doing a lot of stopping i assume. I’m anxious to have my i initial meeting with Dr Couch. Again thank you for your help. Becky

Good luck! The post op team your surgeon’s office may have you break up your car ride into 2 days. My original plan was to sit in the back seat and use the ice machine, but the post op care administrator told me to do whatever I was comfortable with.

Congrats on: 1) your choice of the Mother Ship for your TKR, and 2) your “pre-hab” prep. Those 2 decisions should pay off post-TKR. I’m no athlete, but fell into group fitness classes 10 years ago & only stopped for Covid shutdown. I was told by Andrews Sports Medicine (B’ham AL) in 2014 that my OA qualified for right & left TKR. I had the right TKR March 18 at Mayo JAX, plan to wait/see on the left.

I waited until the number of activities I could no longer do far exceeded those I could.

My physical condition was a plus, negating my age (73 this year). I was the first case on a Monday (ask & you may receive). Procedure started at 8:30 am, I was cleared by the surgical PT right after lunch & discharged @ 1:30 pm. 90 minute car ride home. Started PT 2 days later.

Recovery has been about as good as I could wish. I go to PT M-W-F, the same group I used for a year of pre-hab. I’m 22 days out, my first follow-up is in 2 days. Swelling / bruising / pain were less than expected, first week was pretty uncomfortable, now it’s only uncomfortable at night and when I don’t move around for a while.
FWIW - I asked about ice machines, answer was “I don’t recommend them now, concern is Pt will fall asleep during use & sustain tissue damage”.

The pre-op exercises are great, but if you think of your body as a machine, and try to work on all your moving parts, everything you do to increase strength, balance, and flexibility pre-op is going to pay post-op dividends.

At the end of the day, I’m grateful for the access to world-class medical care at Mayo. I would not have had such a good result without that care.

Awesome! Thank you for your response. Your TKR sounds like it went well. I am not new to Mayo. 20 years ago I had a 14 hour surgery that saved my life so needless to say the mothership will always be my first choice. Keep up the good work 😀

Thank you for your update! I hope everything goes great with your knee. It still stuns me that Mayo Rochester is, per Newsweek, the #1 hospital in the world. Again.

I am 6 weeks out from surgery, PT and exercises going pretty well.
My issues all along have been GI.
I’ve stop all meds for a while, but I continue to have loss of appetite, nausea and significant weight loss.
Has any one else had these symptoms.
Thanks

I stopped my meds after 9 days but continued to have nausea and not hungry for several weeks after that. It will eventually come back!

Thank you, 7 weeks and I can barely hit.
It’s good to know I’m not the only one 😊