Total knee replacement

@ddsack I know everyone is different but how many months was it until you could get get down on the boat cushion Or a kneeler after your surgery? Are you able to walk without an assistive device on the grass and in your gardens beds?

@b13moore
Jiffy knee is a semi proprietary method of doing a subvastus total knee replacement. In a subvastus method the muscle and tendon are not cut; instead the surgeon goes under them. It provides a lesser field of work than the traditional method but much less trauma from which to recover.

In my view hip/knee surgeons are professionals and like all professionals they follow a bell curve. There are outliers on the good end (like mine) and outliers on the bad end (surgeons who should have their licenses reviewed) but most fall somewhere in the middle.

My surgeon's view on Jiffy knees, and I agree with it, is that it depends on the surgeon. Some are really good and have adopted the approach and some are not very good but like the fact that it is marketed and provides a tool for moving the muscle and tendon aside. I suspect it is the latter which led to the comments aboutd "Jiffy Knee".

@momma2lucy

I had my TKR’s in Oct/Nov so I had all winter here in Minnesota to rehab my knee. I don’t remember how many weeks out from surgery, but as soon as my knee had enough degrees of flex, I tried the yoga child’s pose which is on your knees, arms forward, bending your back forward and down. Of course I needed pillow padding for the knees, and I couldn’t bend all the way down as before. Once your incision is well healed, the only thing keeping you from kneeling is the discomfort of the metal (which will never change) and developing enough range of knee flex.

I was sent home with a 2 wheeled walker, but only used it much the first few days. In my small house — it was faster to just hang on to walls and furniture to get around, But I did use it for my prescribed daily walking sessions. My PT guy supplied me with a cane when he decided I was ready for it in a couple of weeks. I don’t think I used the cane regularly for very long, mostly just when I was outside of my home. By the time I finished my last few weeks of PT, I did not need a cane. By spring, about 6 months after surgery, I could do whatever I needed to in the garden, as before. Yes, getting up and down was a little more stiff and awkward, but I had plenty of time in the winter months to perfect my roll to the side, and push up with my arms to rise up from sitting on the ground. Not very graceful and often done with cursing, but I get it done! Having several gardening stools scattered around the garden was helpful, but sometimes I need to sit on a cushion on the ground to keep my back more comfortable.

Thank you. It is a pleasure hearing about positive outcomes from TKR.

Linda Cvetan-Raymond

I was in excruciating pain after my tkr for a week. I was not given good (or any) advice about how much pain medication I should take. The handout said one oxycodone every 6 hours. I was also told by RN and PT at hospital that I probably wouldn’t need any pain medication till the next day. Wrong!! I finally wised up and called the pharmacist and he said I could take as many as two oxy every four hours.
Later a friend of who had had the same surgery was sent home with a fanny pack full of pain med that was injected into the surgery site. She had no pain at all for the first three days. She told me you had asked for it from the anesthesiologist, but no one told me about that. When I do my next knee, I’m definitely requesting one. It’s been five weeks since my surgery and this is the first morning I’ve woken up without my knee hurting! Turns out my knee was in terrible shape with one bone wearing a groove into the other so I imagine my surgery was more intense than my friend’s.