My Chronic Knee Pain After Replacement caused by Wrong Size Implant

Posted by cyd @cyd, Aug 5, 2020

Hello, I have seen a lot of people with similar stories of chronic pain in their knee after surgery. My experience: I had a total knee replacement although I worked very diligently with Physical Therapists and followed their instructions of what exercises to do at home, I still had extreme pain every single day.Upon the advice of my Ortho, I had a manipulation procedure. Skipping on past months, nothing I could do would relieve the pain short of sitting doing absolutely nothing but elevation and ice therapy. My pain management Dr. performed a Genicular Nerve Block. Nope, that didn't help either. Skipping on past months more, injections and water retention aspirations didn't help either. Then my Ortho decided the only thing to do was to go back in for a little clean up (knee scope). That proved to be not of any use. It's now two years after my replacement. Things are going downhill at a faster pace. I finally convinced another Dr. to take a look at me because you know the other Orthos don't like to take on someone else's patient. Anyhow, he immediately started ruling out causes. Tested for metal allergies, blood tests for infections, Nuclear Bone Scans for hard to detect hiding infections. You name it, he did it. I had mentioned to the original Dr. and now to this new Dr. that I had had such a hard recovery from the surgery that something right from the start must not have been right. My original Dr. thought it was laughable when I asked him a few times if perhaps the wrong sized implant was used . My new Dr. took that question much more seriously. The findings from all the tests showed loosing of the parts of the initial implant. My new Dr. also confirmed with imaging that the femoral part of my implant WAS too large for me causing the slow painful loosening of the whole knee implant. I was very wary but hey what could I do ? I couldn't live like that any more. Yes, I agreed to the revision and oh my gosh ! from the very first day I could tell a big difference in the way I felt. My pain and swelling was hugely less, my progress with Physical Therapy was 100 % more successful. My recovery time was amazing much easier. If there seems to be no explanation from your Ortho about very chronic pain my suggestion would be to find an Ortho to take your question of if you have the correct sized parts for your body implanted into you. You know how it is, when you go to your follow up appointments, you're always told that there's no problem everything looks like it's lined up just fine. I found out the hard way that this is a more common problem than you think. I couldn't believe it myself ! And yes, as some of you have stated my original Ortho Doc was as mad as a hornet that I had gotten another opinion. THAT'S YOUR RIGHT AND THEIR EGO PROBLEM. Hope my story might help someone else out their with unexplained seriously painful chronic pain on a daily basis.

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@skshapiro

Please refer to my comments about synovitis or "angry knee syndrome because your symptoms sound just like mine. My newer PT told me that cranking your knee to full extension is old school and that method is coming under scrutiny. My swelling most of the time is much better but unfortunately my bend still sucks and this after TKR 19 months ago. I am grateful for what I can do but stairs without a bannister is a nightmare and stability is poor. Best of luck on your journey.

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I ended up getting an MUA (Manipulation under anesthesia) after 11 weeks post-op based on a second opinion. I feel like this has helped immensely but I still have to warm up the knee every day, and it still feels warm after a day of moving, always feels tight (going on 13 weeks since MUA).
I'm glad I did it as its added so much more mobility to my joint. I'm going on 6 months since my surgery. I hope that someday I can forget about it all. It can hike and bicycle... just that damn tight feeling all the time.

Every day I have to stretch, exercise, and get it moving, oiling the exterior up as well so it feels better.

I too agree that there is no consensus on the physical therapy/surgeon coordination of rehabilitation. Does it really benefit a patient to be hurt and pressed down by 2 PT's just to get a number that doesn't last? I am still concerned about developing further scar tissue, so I keep working always. Should I be resting? Ibuprofen still, 200mg every 6 hours, sometimes Tylenol still. Geez... never used to take hardly anything. I still use my ice machine at night sometimes.

Meanwhile, my other knee hurts badly... don't know if I can go forward. Not much follow-up from surgery team.

I love bannisters, I love railings in bathrooms and tall toilets. Different perspective for sure these days!

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@babette

@apriljoy Please don't continue to suffer! This happened to me. First TKR was Summer 2018. After about 2 months I knew something wasn't right. Dr. kept stalling about recovery time and stages, said X-rays looked great, etc. I researched the hell out of other surgeons and found one in Boston who has become my hero. Since surgeons won't see you for a second opinion until you are one year out, I did have to wait (year of total hell). I saw surgeon 2 in Summer of 2019 and had my revision in October. The recovery from the revision was excellent because the surgeon did it right! But it was still one more recovery with all that entails.

I've since learned that surgeon 1 likely used a known-to-be-flawed DePuy Attune knee and installed it incorrectly to boot.

Don't stop searching for a good surgeon - are you near a teaching hospital? That's the best way to go, I think.

I wish you all the best - I've been where you are and it's the worst.

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Hi Babette! Thank you for your posts about your experience.My husband is having tremendous pain from his implant, can you please tell me the name of the orthopedic surgeon who did your revision in Boston. Wishing you the best! Jacqui

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