@sarahleemoore62 Sarah Lee, I am sorry you are going through so much trouble with your knee replacement. I have not had that experience, but I do work with a physical therapist for issues when my pelvis goes out of alignment and for me that does cause knee or low back pain when it is out of alignment. My PT tells me keeping proper body alignment prevents the uneven wear and tear on the knee joint. I would think this is just as important after a knee replacement that the alignment is correct with the replaced knee and your body's other joints like ankle, hip, and pelvis are in proper alignment. When my pelvis is out of alignment, it sometimes functionally seems that one leg is longer that the other. In reality, that isn't true, but the pelvis may have an upslip that moves the leg upward as if it was shorter. That affects my walking and causes low back pain.

Here is a link that explains knee mechanics and movement. Of course a knee replacement changes that, but it also explains other alignment issues.
https://mskneurology.com/resolve-knee-pain-alignment/
From your X-ray image when you follow the line that is equidistant between your feet upward, you can see that it is not equidistant between the 2 sides when it gets near your pelvis, and it looks like one side of your pelvis is higher.

I do hope that you have a top notch orthopedic surgeon if you are considering revision surgery, and it doesn't hurt to get several opinions on that. Some questions you may want to ask would be if the knee replacement implant is positioned properly at the end of the bone, but did it leave a longer femur on that side because not enough bone was removed before placement in surgery, effectively, are your legs actually different lengths?

If you were going to have a re-operation, who would you trust to fix it and get it right? You need the best surgeon you can find with experience in revision surgery. I feel for you, as that will be a big surgery and long recovery. I can relate to that with my ankle that has had surgeries because of a bad fracture with long recoveries. I saw my mom going through having both knees replaced.

If you wanted to seek an opinion at any of the Mayo Clinic Campuses, you can get started with this link. I have had spine and ankle surgery at Mayo Rochester and it was a good experience. http://mayocl.in/1mtmR63

Jennifer

I'm looking to find a top notch Orthopedic that does revision surgery. I have been to a couple, but still looking.
Thank you so much ❣️

@sarahleemoore62 Sarah Lee, I wanted to share to page where you can look up what insurance Mayo accepts as in network. You can also call them to ask if your insurance is in network, and how you can appeal if it is not.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/patient-visitor-guide/billing-insurance/insurance/accepted-insurance
You already know what you went through with the first surgery. I think I would be worried too having to do it all over again. Mayo does take cases that other facilities are not able to treat. Some of what Dr. Sems has done is to correct severely bowed legs enabling a person to walk again, and that was with the fixator cage that gets attached to the bones. (See video in story at end of post.) It gets adjusted to move the bone and stretch it, so the bone remodels itself. Right after I broke my ankle, the hospital I was taken to put a fixator cage on my ankle and closed the wound where one bone was sticking out. I had that for a couple weeks while the swelling was subsiding a bit before I came to Mayo for internal fixation to put the ankle back together. It was annoying to live with a big metal cage on my ankle and when I bumped it, it was like getting kicked in the shins, but that was also painful because of the trauma of course. The cages that go around a leg are circular. I had talked to another patient of Dr. Sems with one of these cages on his leg on one of my Mayo visits. I'm sure it is a bit painful when it gets adjusted, but that is in very small increments and done every day. I had asked Dr. Sems about this at one of my appointments.

If you are having trouble getting insurance coverage for Mayo, You should initiate an appeal with your insurance to request coverage. You have an unusual situation that a lot of places don't have experience with, and you need a place that can give you a good result. All of the various opinions you have are evidence of that. The last thing you need is someone guessing about how this should be addressed. My husband takes calls for a service investigating claims for insurance companies and has taken calls from other people after knee replacements with mismatched limbs.

Here is another story I found in Sharing Mayo Clinic about limb regeneration and Dr. Sems with a video about how they helped a patient. It really is quite remarkable.
https://sharing.mayoclinic.org/2016/05/29/limb-lengthening-and-regeneration-clinic-offers-hope-for-amarachi/
Please let me know what happens. What have the orthopedic surgeons told you as how they could treat the mismatched length of your legs?