Full Knee Replacement Surgery with history of bowel surgeries

Posted by andoman @andoman, 3 days ago

Im booked to have a full knee surgery replacement in 2 weeks in a public hospital and as yet, not even met the surgeon. I have had 3 major bowel surgeries, one was small bowel obstruction where I lost 30cm of small bowel. The 2nd was a big bowel surgery where I lost 35cm of bowel to Diverticulitis. Then I had another small bowel obstruction for adhesions and then my last stomach surgery was for hernia where they mesh my stomach.
So no one has informed me from the hospital whether it’s safe to have a full knee replacement ? in fact I’ve yet to even meet the surgeon as it’s a public hospital so I’m getting rather nervous as no one has said if I’ll be ok with such a medical history. Anyone been in the same situation ?

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Joint Replacements Support Group.

covidstinks2023 | @covidstinks2023 | 3 days ago

@andoman, It seems this is becoming the norm. I just had total knee replacement. Saw the surgeon and he accessed my xrays and told me I needed knee replacement. I was then to let him know when I could carve out time for the surgery. He told me it would be a year of healing. He is a phenomenal surgeon, there is just not much communication for what to prepare for the surgery, what you need to buy, what you need to expect after surgery. 99% of what I found out was from folks who had knee replacement.

I worked in the medical field for years and things have changed drastically with communication and you have to be your own advocate and contact the doctor and ask the questions or at least communicate with the PA. I had to MyChart them several times with questions.

I do think that doctors retiring, nurse shortages, COVID, Insurance and more of us Baby Boomers with medical issues has slowed things down. I am sympathetic as I see burn out in so many of my doctors. Doctors simply don't have the time to spend with the patients they used to have.

I find Nurse Practitioners and Integrative Medicine Doctors tend to spend more time with you. I believe they are all doing the best they can.

Personally, I would call and ask before I had such a serious surgery since you have pre-existing issues. You are going to have to contact them and ask all the questions or have a family member help you. Knee replacement is major surgery.

Praying for you answers and peace of mind for this.

janchan | @janchan | 2 days ago

hi, andoma. I agree with covidstinks (good name). Doctors don't seem to have much time to talk with patients these days. In my city, it seems to happen suddenly, for some reason. I also can relate to you having questioning questions about your upcoming TKR surgery. I'm scheduled to have mine done on July 15, and just found out, I may be sent home after the surgery, not to a rehab hospital for two weeks as I was previously told. No one has told me why the change was made. Now, I'm scrambling to find someone who will be "on call" to come pick me up on July 15 and take me home. I had inconveniencing my friends and wish my doctor could have given me a heads up before this, but I know he's a good person and would not have put off telling me such important information unless he had to make the change. I suspect my insurance company, which has been pushing more and more costs to me than before, may have something to do with the change. Who knows? Regarding your bowel surgeries, I had 11 inches removed from my sigmoid colon in 1993. It's been such a long time ago, I hesitated to reply to you, but so you know, I just talked to a GI doctor about the possible effects of strong painkillers on my gut (due to a failed prep for a colonoscopy where the prep reacted in an unexpected way). The GI doctor told me my reaction and my colon resection should not affect my TKR surgery. I'm not sure if that is helpful and you have an uneventful surgery.
Regards,
janchan