Absolutely, clicking knee, another unpleasant surprise from the biggest mistake of my life. Six months after TKR, the knee started clicking with every bend and so we scheduled (yet another) surgery to remove the scar tissue. The clicking stopped but 3 weeks later it was back so now I am pursuing UltraSound Guided Injections. I'm not an MD, but this is my understanding. Ultrasound allows the doc to visualize the dead portion of the patellar tendon. Using long, painful needles, (photos attached) the doc removes the dead portion of the tendon and waits a month to see if healthy tendon fibers grow back. In two weeks, I will know the answer but I'm not hopeful because oldsters don't grow tendons as well as youngsters. It is my non professional opinion that this problem could have been avoided if the original surgeon didn't cut the tendon, and instead, worked around it just like the Saphenous nerve but that would have taken more time.

While clicking may be mildly annoying & imflammatory, what u r doing every time you bend the knee is chafing the tendon against a fixed surface, your prosthetis. Tendons are composed of strands just like the rudder cables in the airplanes I build. The question is, how many chafes will the tendon suffer before it lets go? Imagine a rudder with no cables attached. That's a bullet I'd just as soon dodge so my 3-4x per week exercise routine bends the left knee (which suffers only from arthritis) much more than the right, "repaired" TKR knee. In essence, I am reducing the number and severity of abrasions inflicted on the clicking tendon which means extended biking, hiking, and squats are impossible until it heals (if ever).

Discuss with your doc.

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