10 days post tkr and pain unbearable

No explanation at all on why pain meds don’t work well on me.
They did provide a blend of 3 different medications and on day 26 now. Pain has been tolerable for past couple weeks and improving daily.

Try to stay on meloxicam for at least 30 days or celebrex 7-14 days (as long as you are not taking any blood thinners other than aspirin profilacticly). When there is an advanced OA (ie bone on bone) there is lots of inflamation. Oxy only works to block pain signals in your head and is short term and doesnt address the source of the problem. Work on reducing swelling and pain with elevation and ice. Use ice packs 20 min every hours with a barrier to skin (pillow case) while awake or if you were given ice machine , you can use that one around the clock definetly first 3 days, then just during the day (you can make it colder by higherproportion of ice to water). The machine also comes with barrier pads when you apply to skin.

Our suregons use pain catheters for knees that are good for at least 72 hours with slow delivery of ropivocaine or patients get Exparel injection that also provides contin pain relief for 72 hrs. Patients still expected to take oral pain meds narcotics and anti inflamatory to bridge pain control past 72.
I see you are at about 10 days post op, first two weeks it can be very uncomfortable. Many patients report after 2 weeks they start feeling like pain is becoming more manageble. Continue iceing and elevating. Swelling also contributes to pain. As long as incision looks normal to you (no oozing or redness), the knee is healing. Continue doing gentle heel slides to keep knee joint moving and work with your PT.

All the best !
Lena, PT

You can’t change surgeons after a surgery until a certain amount of time has passed. I can’t remember how long it is three months or something. Good luck. I am seven months out and on two morphine (12-hour release and a fast acting) and two strong muscle relaxers for pain. My third opinion told me I have a long painful road ahead of me.

I had a hamstring repair. I was given a script for meloxicam with oxy as well as senna for possible constipation.

I did not use any meds.

Hope you are doing better.

Thank you to all who have posted on this string. I just joined Mayo Connect this morning as I was awakened with sharp incisional pain now 9 days post op from TKR. All of these posts are helpful.

I am curious about the progress many of you have experienced since these posts are all about 6 months or slightly more older now. Any long term follow-up might be helpful as well.

I am now just over 7 months TKR.
It is definitely a painful recovery (for a couple weeks). My incision was quite painful for some time. It was my left knee. Using a body pillow between my legs and sleeping on my right side helped while trying to sleep. It does get better.
Most importantly, for complete healing keep up with those exercises and physio therapy even if you have to push through the pain. Don’t forget ice. You are not alone. Two weeks post surgery, I was taking a short walk (on crutches) and met up with a gentleman half my age that had a TKR a couple years prior. He shared that he was in such pain post surgery that he was leaning against a wall literally in tears from the pain.
The incision pain will improve. Getting the staples removed after 2 weeks also helped with the incision pain. Within the first few weeks I did wonder if it was worth getting the surgery.
It didn’t take long before I became grateful for getting it replaced. Now 7 months in I can honestly state that it’s the best thing I ever did. Full ROM and no pain. Minor stiffness only.

Using an ICE water machine worked faster and better than pain pills. I used it a lot for two weeks. I was off pain pills after 2.5 weeks

That's awesome. thank you very much for the encouragement!

Great advice on so much.
Forget the ice packs. Use the ice machine that delivers continuous pain relief that you can wear through the night.
The amount of differences in physical therapy & surgeon's opinions on PT is very disconcerting. You recommended gentle heel slides... my PT pushed me pretty hard 3x/wk. I'll never know if that is what contributed to my need of an MUA at 11 weeks, as I couldn't retain the numbers they got me in PT. My knee didn't look that swollen- but I would remain at 90* and couldn't flatten my knee past 7-8* by my 6th week checkup- a non-functional joint. I worked very hard at home as well. Ditched the crutches early on...
I utilized 5mg oxycontin an hour before PT for quite awhile as it was so painful when they would bend or flatten me.

I am 3 months post op tkr and still have a lot of stiffness in the knee. I don't sleep more than 2 hours at night. I elevate and ice my knee periodically, and exercise and stretching every day to no avail. I am fed up with the stiffness, no matter what I seem to do. You are not alone in this recovery mode. Some days I cry through the days.
I had a partial knee replacement on my left knee over three years ago and done very well through that recovery.
This full replacement, has been challenging.