TKR

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Recovery follows a bell curve. There are outliers on the positive end with no pain and good range of motion and outliers on the negative end with lots of pain and little range of motion but most fall somewhere in the middle.

I was an outlier on the positive end. No post surgery pain after my RTKR. Four years ago the same surgeon replaced my left hip and, again, no post surgery pain.

I am an 81 YO male. Before my surgery I told my surgeon that I wanted to be back on the golf course by the end of the fourth week. he replied that it was an aggressive target but he was up for the challenge if I was. I was. He was. On the 27th day after my surgery, I was playing golf.

Recently I had my six month checkup with my surgeon. He told me I had no limitations. I asked if that meant I could go on trampolines with my grandkids; he said yes. I asked if that meant I could run; he said if I wanted to.

My secret: finding that extraordinary surgeon who may be the best hip/knee replacement surgeon in the country, He did a mid vastus cut, put in a bicruciate retaining implant, repaired my severe misalignment with a Functional Alignment and did a plastic surgery close. Even more importantly, he has done at least hundreds of these procedures and has a great mind and great hands.

Wow! What a fabulous recovery! I’m at 7 weeks and still struggling with stairs. How severely affected was your knee before surgery? Could you bend it?

I am a active 73 year old woman. I had r tkr 4 months ago. Yes you need an excellent surgery but you have to have a body that can accept the difficult major surgery, a good PT and the will power to push yourself.
My knee was swollen for 2 months which caused problems doing the PT exercises. The 3 rd month the swelling moved down to my ankle which is causing problems with walking and exercising. I have had X-ray and MRI of the ankle and all looks good. Now I am getting pain from the side of my my right foot up my leg into the hip. They are sending me to a sports doctor thinking it is sciatica syndrome.
Remember everyone's surgery and recovery is different. Go into this surgery with open eyes.

@laurabamford4015

May I ask what happens when you have to use stairs?

@gravity3
I can go up and down stairs now, but I’m seven weeks out. My friend was going up and downstairs within a month. But her recovery was much quicker than mine, even though we had surgery at the same time. My knee was in terrible shape, one bone had worn a hole into the other.
At either five or six weeks, the PT had me going up and down a step which was difficult. I had to learn to have trust and faith in my surgery because I hadn’t been able to go downstairs properly in several years.

@steveinarizona

Where are you in Arizona? Mayo Clinic surgeon?

My search goes back many years. About five years ago my left hip acted up and I ended up at Mayo getting ready for a hip replacement. Then my Mayo surgeon abandoned client practice and went to work for a hedge fund. As I searched I found a non Mayo surgeon who does great things. Jimmy Chow. He is the primary inventor of the Superpath method of minimally invasive hip replacements,.

Dr. Chow replaced my left hip about four years ago using his Superpath method. At that time he was using a titanium implant without cement. The morning of my surgery he walked into the pre surgery room with the hospital's standard multi page document regarding what to do and what no to do after a hip replacement (dont' cross legs, etc.). He said watch this and tossed it into the waste paper basket. He had a one page document and three rules: (1) take my meds as necessary; (2) use the ice machine he provided as a two week rental during the first two weeks and do it a lot (half hour on/half hour off)' and (3) be a couch potato for the first five weeks. The latter was because the implant was not being cemented so as he put it "the only thing I can't do is make bones grow".

I had zero post surgery pain. The only problem I had was the common one that I couldn't put on my socks, etc. A couple of PT sessions took care of that.

Around the beginning of 2025 my previously asymptomatic lumbar stenosis became symptomatic with pain radiating down both legs. After some months, to make long story short, I ended up with a caudal epidural steroid shot that solved my pain problem on my left leg but only partly on my right leg. That was when I realized that my right knee had failed and I was severely misaligned.

I then went back to Dr. Chow. Not only was he the inventor of the Superpath method of hip replacements but he was also at the cutting edge of knee replacements as well. My pain doctor had ordered an MRI of my knee and Dr. Chow's PA thought that my ACL looked strong in the MRI. Dr, Chow is one of the very, very, very few surgeons who regularly does a bicruciate retaining knee implant (BCR). In 99+% of knee replacements, the ACL is removed and in a large percentage, the PCL is removed as well. In a BCR both are retained and protected. But the surgery is more difficult than standard. I actually found a video of Dr. Chow doing a BCR at an orthopedic innovations conference in 2020.

So I told Dr. Chow that I would like a BCR if he could do it. He told me that it would likely be okay but he would have to make a final determination once he opened me up. When he did, he found he could do a BCR And did do one. So I have a new oxidized zirconium right knee with all of my natural ligaments.

This is what I wanted in TKR surgeon:

(1) does a minimally invasive method (subvastus or mid vastus);
(2) Does NOT use a tourniquet;
(3) Uses a robot to assist him;
(4) Does a BCR;
(5) Is a revision surgeon;
(6) fixes my severe valgus misalignment with a Functional alignment (or at a minimum a kinematic or inverse kinematic alignment);
(7) HAS EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE DOING EXACTLY THE SAME PROCEDURE AS I AM GOING TO GET;
(8) Has great hands; and
(9) Has a great mind.

Dr. Chow satisfied all of these criteria and even did a plastic surgery close. A few days before the surgery I was meeting with Dr. Chow and told him I (an 80 YO male) wanted to be back on the golf course by the end of the fourth week. He replied that it was an aggressive target but he was up for the challenge if I was. I was. He was. on the 27th day after my surgery, I was back playing golf.

I had zero post surgery pain. The RX for oxycodone was filled but remains unopened. Dr. Chow's recovery protocol is to essentially be a couch potato the first week (this time the implant was cemented) while walking only with the walker and using the ice machine regularly. In the second week he wants his patients to start some regular household tasks but to start PT in the third week. Similar to the recently announced Quiet Knee Protocol from the Hospital for Special Surgery.

I had a one week appointment with his PA. My son took me in and she removed the dressing and cleared me to drive. So I have been driving myself ever since. Yesterday, albeit playing from the front tees (my only torque that I have left is in my car) I beat my age.

So a long answer. I had a Mayo surgeon but ended up with one outside of Mayo who I think may be the best hip/knee replacement surgeon in the country. Left hip/right knee and no pain either time. His office is in Phoenix and he operates out of the outpatient center of the Abrazo Scottsdale Hospital.

One caveat: he has withdrawn from Medicare and doesn't take insurance. I had to pay his fee directly to him and it was not reimbursable. The rest of my costs were covered by my Medicare Advantage PPO Plan.