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Numbness and burning after knee replacement
3 weeks after knee replacement I experience severe numbness and burning on the leg (not the knee) above and below the knee, mostly at night. Nothing relieves it and I have great difficulty sleeping at night. Is this normal? What should I do?
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I am to see this orig. surgeon in three weeks but I have been thinking why waste my money. I had the first surgery last Jan., the revision surgery in April and this surgeon started to talk about the other knee in Oct.
The numbness and problems getting up from sitting may be from nerves regenerating. Have they said anything to you about B vitamins to help regenerate nerves or gabapentin for the nerve pain. I’m at a loss to understand why doctors don’t recommend these two things. Especially if you’re like me and your body is low in B vitamins anyway. Hope you can find more relief.
This surgeon doesn't seem to want to do much except operate on the other leg. Very disappointed in him and will be having the other leg done by someone else after this one starts acting and feeling normal. I asked for the shots of spar so that the other knee would perform while this one was healing and he tried to talk me out of it. I told him that I needed to be able to walk to heal. I now feel that he wanted to get at that other knee asap.
For the first surgery in Jan., I was all prepped and under when my husband was notified that they were going to have to keep me in "twilight sleep" as allegedly the instrument bag had a hole in it and they were afraid of contamination and that would take about an hour. Hubby asked about instruments and was told they only had one set that had come from a large city near us. To me that seemed strange. Hubby is kicking himself that he didn't top the surgery right then and there. I came out of that one with my knee so far out of place that the leg did not line up staight.
As I commented to my husband the last visit. The office allows 10 minutes for the visit with me and that is all you get.
For the second operation 3-4 mths later, he put it this way. "I don't want to put you through all that again so I think "we" should do a TKR. Being in pain and hubby and I agreed. Now we know that was done so I could be billed again and it would not go into Medicare as a botched operation which they would not pay for again.
It seems we have both had nightmare knee surgeries. I now have a new orthopedic doctor am will pray harder that his hands will be creating a good knee for me. I’m putting off the surgery for as long as possible. I’ve been alternating between gel shots and steroid shots. The steroid shot is a miracle of pain relief. The gel shots don’t help as much because they don’t treat the inflammation from my arthritis where I’m bone on bone.
Thanks for your insight. Hubby and I have been looking at other Docs and are going to try to get in with one in the practice my GP recommends. What you said about additional therapy was the end of the road for 1st surgeon. I was progressing well with things but felt I needed more help, especially with balance and the tingling, pins and needles.
I would like to tell you a bit more about the first surgeon. I was in rehab after 1st surgery and had those pins and needles almost non stop, got to where I was crying as pain meds did nothing. Nurse called him and she came back and said it wasn't related to my knee! I cried what could I do because I could not sleep and it hurt so bad. The nurse got some BioFreeze and gave my leg a good rub down massage and that gave me some relief for a time. And when I did see the doc I would lshow him where the pain was, in front of leg, on left side, down to ankle (and now further). Never gave me anything for it, told me it would heal.
The second operation something happened that now, in retrospect, should have had me cancel. I was schedule for 7 a.m. on a Monday. I had requested that because of my hurting and wanting to get it over. Late Frid afternoon the surgery nurse calls and asks me what time my surgery is Monday. I tell her 7 am., she tells me that she is rescheduling me for noon as they are waiting for the rep to be there!(?) I told her I didn't need a rep and that I didn't want to change. She was sorry, but too bad, so sad.
Hubby talked to her. I wanted to cancel but hubby said he wanted to talk to the surgeon. The surgeon called us back indicating that we had had a problem with the nurse. Hubby told him what she had said, waned to know what was going on with the rep and change of time. Turns out the rep was going to be there for another surgery and I was being rescheduled later because he wanted to observe my surgery! That is not what was told me. And its my surgery at my disgression. Surgeon then claimed he has no control over scheduling but would see what he could do.
Short time later the nurse called back, with an attitude, notifying me that I had been rescheduled back to 7 a.m.
In retrospect, along with the first surgery, I should have cancelled and run like h*ll, but I had been in pain for so long.
We have made arrangements to get my medical records and x-rays from the first and second surgeries today and are giong to take them up to the orthosurgeon tomorrow so he can see them when he gets in on Monday and see if he will take me as a patient (that scares me). Nurse there also wanted MIR or MRI (whatever it is) and sounded shocked that I never had one before either surgery.
Please keep me in your prayers. I'm scared.
I hope for a better experience with the new surgeon. If you have read very much on Connect, you will see that complications do happen, and some surgeons are better with sleeping patients than those who are awake and asking questions.
Keep remembering that you are in charge of your health, and need to have confidence that you are being heard. The fact that the nurse is asking for your MRI should inspire confidence - that means someone is planning to take a close look at what is happening inside your body.
One of the things we like to stress to each other here on Connect is to be your own best advocate. In order to do that when I am feeling upset by my situation, or my pain, I sit down and compose a letter to my prospective doctor, customer service rep, lawyer, or whoever. I try to factually lay out my situation, step by step. Then I say what I would like from them. I know emotion or anger will creep in, so I set it aside and reread and amend it the next day to be more "polite." Especially, I avoid any angry or "I should sue..." references about my previous care, rather just say exactly how I think it fell short of what I needed. For example, in your case I might say "I felt I would progress better with additional physical therapy, which the doctor refused to order because..." I don't necessarily send this letter, but it makes a good practice for presenting your case to the surgeon or his staff in a discussion, or you may want to email it to be considered along with your records.
Finally, someone, at some stage in your post-surgery, ought to have explained the tingling and pins-and-needles pains. Other sensations may be describes as shooting, burning, stabbing...Whenever you are cut, nerves are either disturbed by being moved around, or cut, depending on the procedure. Nerves get very angry when this happens, and let you know with that type of pain. Now, eventually nerves do regenerate, at a VERY SLOW pace - after knee repair surgery it took well over a year for my nerves to calm down. And during much of that time, the disruption caused my brain not to know where my foot was, so I often stumbled, tripped, and fell. Occasionally, the nerve refuses to cooperate, or maybe gets pinched in a bad spot, and the pain keeps on. At that point more investigation is needed to find a solution.
I am sending you my very best wishes that the new surgeon agrees to work with you to get to the root of the problem.
Are you thinking about writing a letter to clarify your situation?
Sue
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3 ReactionsI think when they say it’s not the knee they mean it’s nerves regenerating but they tell us nothing.
Sue - Thanks so much for your advice here. It has been almost a year since I have been able to sleep in my bed for a whole night.
I like how you said this: . For example, in your case I might say "I felt I would progress better with additional physical therapy, which the doctor refused to order because..." Nicely put and I will use it. FWIW, this Doc also refused to issue an order for therapy before surgery seeing no use for it. I did some exercises on my own before because I understand that the stronger your leg muscles are before, the better.
As for suing - that is something to consider AFTER I get my leg fixed so it feels normal or close to normal. All day I have had that pin and needle, numb type feeling and sometimes sharp pain from knee to foot. It is hard to try to walk when your leg feels this way just as it is hard to walk if your leg were numb from, say sitting on it. The best thing is to have a doc that fixes the problems I have been complaining about. That alone speaks volumes.
Also, a BIG THANKS for listening and reading my situation. We are elderly and family is away from us so there is really no one to advocate for us but each other. I believe that the elderly are sometimes not taken seriously in what they say.
You want to take charge of your health, but we are not experts and don't understand a lot of things. This was my very first surgery in 75 years. As I say, this practice schedules the surgeon to see you for up to 10 minutes and if you ask and he doesn't give an answer or gives a bland answer we don't always put it together right away. We are all in a bit of awe with doctors and surgeons.
The last 2 visits to the surgeon started out and ended with him wanting to talk about my NEXT surgery!!