Truth about Total Knee Replacements

Sorry I was answering another message and I’m on the wrong message. I don’t know what happened.

If your knee is buckling it’s unstable. Different things can cause that. If you have fallen that much and have that much issue with your knee buckling I would get a 2nd opinion.
My tibial plate was loose on my first knee. The second knee the spacer was the wrong size and my knee hyper extends and my knee cap slides out of place. Surgeons who did the work will not find “anything wrong” with their work. Talk with your PT and see if y’all can figure out what you might could do to make it stronger and get a second opinion from a different doctor.

I'm a 65-year old male who's 26 and 25 months post bilateral TKRs. My (right) knee is far worse now than it ever was pre-surgery. The difference isn't even close, and I greatly regret having chosen surgery. It's not a mischaracterization to say the surgery has caused great harm to my body and left me with permanent, life-altering impairment, much as an auto accident or war injury might affect someone. My other (left) knee isn't as bad, but it too is still worse than pre-surgery.

The worst problem by far with my right knee is its significant loss of flexion. This loss is approximately 20 degrees, so it can now only bend to 95 degrees, at which point it comes to a sudden, extremely painful, dead stop. This decrease in ROM makes doing many routine activities difficult or even impossible because of pain and simply not being able to bend the joint enough. These include putting on or taking off pants, socks, and shoes, going up or down stairs, getting into or out of a seated position, getting into or out from a car, bending over to pick up a fallen object from the floor, etc. Kneeling with thick neoprene knee pads is possible and acceptably comfortable, but getting down into a kneeling position is difficult. Getting up from the ground is MUCH more difficult and requires significant upper body strength to push up from the ground and grab a stationary object to get an assisting hand hold to pull up from.

Fortunately, the extension on both knees is excellent, 100%.

I attended all the in-home and outpatient physical therapy sessions my Anthem Blue Cross health insurance would cover, probably 36 visits in all, and performed the prescribed exercises at home regularly in the early months following surgery. To date, I've also attended numerous visits with the orthopedic surgeon who operated on both of my knees, and he and I have maintained good relations. I've also had appointments with several other orthopedic surgeons in order to get their second, third, and fourth opinions, but none of them has been able to confidently diagnose the underlying cause of my condition nor offer new ideas for possible treatment. They all trust my testimony and can feel the "dead stop" my knee comes to when manipulating it with their own hands. The operating surgeon says I doubtless have significant scarring and fibrosis as a direct result of surgery, but doesn't know how it can be addressed without attempting to remove the hardened soft tissue by surgery.

I'm not posting this to advise anyone from getting a TKR since I know many patients do indeed report very positive results. I'm simply doing so to report my OWN personal experience and situation and to advise due diligence being as well informed as possible before deciding to get surgery or not.

Wow! I’ve never heard such a positive review of bilateral knee and hip replacement outcomes. To say your new knees and hip feel totally normal. Please share the names of your surgeon(s).

The same surgeon did all three surgeries:
Mark Pagnano MD
Mayo Clinic, Rochester

My shoulder is the same - no problems; no post surgery pain; no PT needed; feels totally normal 14 months later. (My pcp can not believe it.)
Sanchez Sotello
Mayo Clinic RST

Two weeks ago I had my second opinion appointment and I was extremely disappointed. I actually printed responses from this website that described my issues and he didn't even look at it. He acted as if he knew all the issues all ready. He did not ask me any questions and seemed very reluctant to discuss a revision with no explanation as to why. I told my femur surgeon, who recommended him, my experience and she seemed baffled. I now have a second opinion with a nother doctor later this month. I guess I am writing this to vent my frustration with this whole TKR journey. Meanwhile since my femur is healing nicely I am getting stronger but that bend is still a b**tch.

How far out are you from your replacements? I too was frustrated with the lack of flexion and how it severely was cutting down on my day to day activities. Your description of impact is very true, as I regretted having had mine done as well.
I did have a second opinion and he recommended the MUA ( manipulation under anesthesia), which my surgeon wasn’t a proponent of at first. I told him I needed a functional joint when he said he was happy if his pts got 90*!!! I had the MUA done at 11 weeks post-op. I’m now about 8 weeks out from the MUA.

So glad I did it. That wall you hit is a wall of scar tissue. I couldn’t break past that though I was religious about PT 3x/wk and all the exercises at home. My extension improved as well. Was 10* or more, now I can get to 0* with my stretching. Flexion up to +125*, making for a much more flexible knee.
Still recovering. Still need to ice and elevate. Still building up my strength.

Don’t think I will do knee #2 for a long while. Though it hurts, bone on bone… just like too much what it can do verses giving it all up for an artificial joint. The Drs certainly don’t go into that very much fo they?

I just saw you said how far out. Whoops.

I'm too far out from surgery to have an MUA.

I’d be finding someone who’d work on surgically removing the scar tissue. There’s got to be a way. That wall you’re hitting has to be scar tissue. You’re too young to settle.
Then have aggressive physical therapy, covered by good pain control ( discussed ahead of time w surgeon team) and an ice machine for at nighttime. I swear by my ice machine. It should be required after a TKA or MUA.