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Knee #2- am I ready?

Joint Replacements | Last Active: Mar 17, 2019 | Replies (23)

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@ssbionicknee

@amytro I know every person and every surgery is different, but I thought I would share my experience with you. In my opinion I would wait several months if you are able. I had my TKR in May 2017 and like you my old knee took a beating because it was the stabilizing leg. I too was going to have the other knee replaced as soon as I recovered. However, in August, I fell and landed on my new knee and my shoulder. My new knee was fine, but in September, I realized that something was wrong with my shoulder. I went to see a shoulder specialist and found out that I had torn 3 tendons and my bicep muscle. I was scheduled for surgery in October and was released from the knee surgeon even though I was still in PT. I had surgery on my shoulder and they had to repair a good bit of damage due to the fall and arthritis. The span between the 2 surgeries was 5 months. I had a much harder time recovering from my shoulder surgery. Major surgery is a trauma to the body and in my case, I feel needed more recovery time. I was exhausted all the time and after some testing, I recently found out that I was anemic and my B12 levels were very low. I have to wonder if having the 2 surgeries so close together was a factor. I just started taking B12 injections and a high dose of iron. I will be retested in 6 months. I will be cleared from my shoulder surgeon soon and now have gone back to the knee surgeon. I am going to try and schedule my knee surgery in August. This will give me 10 months to recovery from my shoulder surgery and will give my body a chance to raise the iron and B12 levels. I wish I could have waited a few months in between the knee and shoulder surgery, but I had to have the shoulder surgery or I would have risked losing range of motion in my arm. Discuss it with your doctor. Everyone is different. My body just needed a little more time to heal. Good luck to you. Let us know what you decide. I am also interested to see how your second operation goes, since I am about to schedule mine next week.

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Replies to "@amytro I know every person and every surgery is different, but I thought I would share..."

I just want to say that I am 7 weeks PO from a RTKR and there is no way in Hades I would even consider getting the other done until next year if it's possible. I am struggling with this one and will get cortisone shots, etc on my other one until this knee surgery is a distant memory. As you might have guessed, I'm not one of those who breezed through it and was shoveling snow 5 weeks PO.