Very thankful for new knee

I am five days out and even after the first day I felt way better than before. I had almost constant pain in my knee before surgery and unpredictable but occasional really sharp pain radiating from my heel which we determined was almost certainly referred pain from my knee. I limped around with a cane and couldn't keep up with my little grandkids.

So my post surgery pain was far less than my pre surgery pain. Only pain is at the surgical site when I first get up and walk with walker (my surgeon's protocol is to be a couch potato for the first week and use the walker). After a few steps it mostly relents.

My golf course reopens four weeks after my surgery. I challenged my surgeon to get me on the first tee that day.

Another success story.

My TKR is scheduled in 2 months (December). I am thankful to hear from people who had good outcomes. So much talk about how difficult this surgery is to recover from. I am doing strengthening exercises for my legs so hopefully I will be pain free and have a positive recovery too.

Hi frannee! Shelby29 is right. There are a lot of sad reports here, but that's because it's the people who are having the more unusual issues after surgery who are looking for reassurance. Like I said in another post, when I went to my pre-surgery class the PT stated that the people in the most pain, or with the most severe disability, would have the easiest time in recovery. It made no sense to me at the time, but it sure did after surgery! People who can barely walk prior to the TKR are thrilled to be up and using a walker the day of surgery! People like me, who had a slowly deteriorating quality of life but were mostly pain-free, are a bit shocked to suddenly find themselves unable to fully bend their knee, using a "leg lifter" to get out of bed, a shower chair, a commode seat and a walker! The recovery is, of course, more difficult for some than others. Mostly though, I think it is the length of recovery that people find disappointing. There's lots of talk about being up and walking the same day as surgery, but only here do you find people hashing out the reality of weeks of PT, fighting to increase ROM, swelling and icing. There are small set-backs from doing too much, falling(!), or hurting your back like I did, but it's mostly healing and moving forward -- maybe just not as fast as we would like!

@frannee best of luck to you. Do your exercises,ice, elevate and ho to PT.