Knee replacement with a titanium rod that goes through the knee.

@jelliott31 oh my! Only your doctor knows how that works…

@jelliott31 Hello and welcome to Connect. I am surprised to hear that you have a rod through your entire leg. Was this an unusual circumstance that lead to this outcome? Can you share your personal history of how this happened and why doctors chose this treatment? That must make walking difficult. Are you consulting surgeons about removing this rod? It surely has affected your muscular strength if you haven't been able to move your muscles in your leg.

I just had the opposite two weeks ago. I had a tkr Feb 2023. Recovery was difficult my bend never got more than 102. Now almost two weeks ago I was in my kitchen and took a step and the same knee as my tkr collapsed. I had surgery the next day where the put a rod in my femur and I think did some attachment at tkr. Of course quite painful but I am wondering will I have any limitations as a result of both things happening to my leg.

What were the circumstances to place a rod the entire length of your leg. Your knee would be completely immobile so not sure why you would need a TKR. Can you explain a bit more? Thanks.

50+ fractures below the knee. No fractures above the knee. I was told the full-length rod was necessary to save the leg below the knee. I was told there was damage to the knee. But I was not told to what extent. Car accident

the bone below the knee was fractured about 52 places with some damage to the knee. There was no damage to the bone above the knee. I was told by the surgeon that I could lose the lower leg unless a rod was placed through the entire leg. Now, I thing this was not the correct thing to do.

@jelliott31 Now I understand. It makes sense. If your bones were in so many pieces, it was probably very difficult to piece them together in a way that would allow them to heal correctly. There is also the aspect of proper blood flow to keep the tissue alive and there needed to be some support to keep the blood vessels in a normal arrangement. My experience isn't the same as yours, but is a bad ankle fracture. My cousin is a radiologist and when I showed him my x-ray, he said I was lucky I could walk at all. I had puzzle piece fractured shapes on the front of my tibia but not fractured all the way through, and both of the "knobs" of the ankle were broken off. (the inside one is part of the tibia, and the outside one is the fibula). There was enough un-fractured bone to attach plates to secure the broken places.

I hope you will be able to have the rod removed some day if your leg is strong enough. It sounds like the accident was very serious.

they were not in pieces. they were cracks. My ankle was good, my knee was good. my upper leg was good. The doctors concern was if I put pressure on my lower leg.

@jelliott31 Was this a fairly recent accident and you are still healing? Is a knee replacement necessary if the rod was to be removed? Does the rod go through the knee joint itself or around it?

I know sometimes external cages are used for stabilization and I had one on my ankle for the first couple weeks after the fracture waiting for the swelling to subside a little before surgery for ankle fixation. My surgeon also does some surgeries that can lengthen bones or straightens them by using an external cage screwed into the bone in combination internal surgery. For limb lengthening, the patient will adjust a dial on the external cage so it is expanding from the points of attachment and the pressure that exerts on the bone causes it to reform in a new longer shape. This process continues until the desired length is achieved over a period of time. This is also how they can create new bone if bone has been lost through disease. It's pretty amazing, but painful and hard to live with.

What a nightmare, I'm so sorry. That's a terrible decision to have to face. 50 fractures below the knee must have left your tibia and fibula like dust.

Now figuring out what to do with the knee. I mean if you can't bend the knee, what do they do with it?

I hope you find some answers Elliot and I'm sorry for what happened.