After completing 6 weeks of physical therapy post right knee arthroscopy with bilateral release, I'm still in pain and have a great deal of pain lifting my leg straight up (with knee straight/locked). I saw my orthopedist again a few weeks ago and he said that usually this operation alleviates pain and it doesn't seem to be working so I was referred to a Sports Medicine Ortho. On Wednesday, I had a consult. He said that because there is pain right on the knee that I can't get passed, the physical therapy is not doing it's job of strengthening/developing the quads (thigh muscles). This is important to keep the knee cap where it's supposed to stay. There is definitely more surgery that could be done, but the Sports Medicine Ortho said it's a lot more invasive and more downtime and something that should really be put off after trying other measures.
After x-ray of both knees, he said that the cartilage under both my knee caps are thin, especially the right one. He gave me a cortisone shot on the knee to take the pain away in order for give physical therapy a chance to do it's magic. I agreed that this was the best course of action. I don't really want to have another surgery (cartilage replacement from a cadaver) with our financial future in limbo. The words "knee replacement" were thrown in the discussion, and hopefully I'm many many any years away from that.
I must confess that I never really knew how much pain/discomfort my knee was in until the pain was gone. Halleluiah! Now, I still can't lift my leg straight up because there is still pain and my thigh is very weak. But at least now, the pain is not as intense and I can do more exercise.
I will be doing physical therapy until April at which time, both the doctor and I can discuss whether the physical therapy has done it's magic. If there is improvement, we will continue with the shot and go for more therapy. And if there is no improvement...well. Who knows.
I've been in physical therapy for a total of 6 weeks for both knees pre-surgery and 6 weeks on the right knee post surgery and an additional 4 weeks. Now, with this new course of action, I will have another 4-6 weeks. I tell you, my physical therapist and I are pretty chummy, but apparently, we're going to be even closer.
On to a possibly bad news - my husband and I have decided to elect COBRA coverage. We submitted the application a few days ago, and when that kicks in, we will have the same exact health insurance coverage that is effective the day after his termination of Feb. 6th. I stopped going to PT a week after that because didn't know which route to take with the health insurance. But once we've decided, I kept on seeing other doctors. Yesterday, my husband tells me that should the company (who has already filed for Ch. 11) file for Ch. 7 bankruptcy, there will no longer be COBRA coverage. If that happens, this means that I've been seeing doctors without health insurance. I estimated that we'll already be about $1,500 in the whole, and it's just going to be bigger if I keep going 2x a week for physical therapy.
Do I keep going to therapy even though there is a possibility that we'll have to pay for the treatment out of our own pocket? Or I do I stop now and proceed only when we're certain of the future? Questions, questions. My wonderful hubby thinks I should keep going. I'm pretty much useless if my knee doesn't improve. And the Sports Medicine ortho already said it won't improve on it's own if I don't do anything.
Oh my. And to think I used to think I was as healthy as a horse.
Showing posts with label knees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label knees. Show all posts
Friday, March 6, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
oh knee, how you have failed me...
After having my arthroscopy with lateral release Dec. 5th, and after 6 weeks of physical therapy after the fact, my knee is still having problems. I am experiencing different pain, but it's a symptom of the same problem - my knee cap isn't staying in it's tract. My right thigh (the operated leg) has lost muscle tone from lack of use and looks different from my left, which has been over-used ever since the surgery. The physical therapy is supposed to strengthen the quads back to it's normal pre-operation function, but the pain in my knee is hindering the effort. I can't get pass the pain in order to build the quads back up.
The pain isn't constant. In fact, I can walk around without pain. The pain rears it's ugly head when I lift my leg straight up from a sitting position and when I'm lying down. And that's the most important exercise when strengthening the quads. Because my quad muscle is very weak, I have to lock my knee pretty much all the time to support my weight. If I bend it during normal walking gait, it gives on me. Nice, huh? No, not really. Especially when my 20 month old twins can outrun me without trying.
The creaking noise it used to make is gone, sure. But it's a whole different ball game. I feel like a cripple. After completing 6 weeks of post-op physical therapy, my doctor ordered 4 more weeks. And told me that the operation didn't help as much as hoped. If we were to leave things alone, being young, I am sure to develop bad arthritis. I already have arthritis, but I guess it was bound to go downhill from here. My orthopaedist has refferred me to a sports medicine doctor to discuss more aggressive surgery. Yikes. This on top of my dear husband's change of employment status and the lost of health insurance last Friday. Well. I will have to make due with being a cripple for a while.
In the meantime, where does this leave me? It leaves me having to propel myself up the stairs if I have to lead with the operated knee. Why would I want to lead with that leg? Well, to give my other bad knee a break, of course. And then hanging on for dear life when going down the stairs, hoping my operated knee doesn't buckle on me making me go down faster than I really want to.
If and when we sell this house, ranch style homes are looking more and more beautiful to me.
Oh well, enough about my misery. This blog sounds worse than it really is. Considering our current state of having no income, we must look for the bright side of things. At least I only have one creaking knee now, instead of two. And my children...what little miracles they are. My husband...well, he's just the best friend anyone could every ask for. We'll all be OK.
The pain isn't constant. In fact, I can walk around without pain. The pain rears it's ugly head when I lift my leg straight up from a sitting position and when I'm lying down. And that's the most important exercise when strengthening the quads. Because my quad muscle is very weak, I have to lock my knee pretty much all the time to support my weight. If I bend it during normal walking gait, it gives on me. Nice, huh? No, not really. Especially when my 20 month old twins can outrun me without trying.
The creaking noise it used to make is gone, sure. But it's a whole different ball game. I feel like a cripple. After completing 6 weeks of post-op physical therapy, my doctor ordered 4 more weeks. And told me that the operation didn't help as much as hoped. If we were to leave things alone, being young, I am sure to develop bad arthritis. I already have arthritis, but I guess it was bound to go downhill from here. My orthopaedist has refferred me to a sports medicine doctor to discuss more aggressive surgery. Yikes. This on top of my dear husband's change of employment status and the lost of health insurance last Friday. Well. I will have to make due with being a cripple for a while.
In the meantime, where does this leave me? It leaves me having to propel myself up the stairs if I have to lead with the operated knee. Why would I want to lead with that leg? Well, to give my other bad knee a break, of course. And then hanging on for dear life when going down the stairs, hoping my operated knee doesn't buckle on me making me go down faster than I really want to.
If and when we sell this house, ranch style homes are looking more and more beautiful to me.
Oh well, enough about my misery. This blog sounds worse than it really is. Considering our current state of having no income, we must look for the bright side of things. At least I only have one creaking knee now, instead of two. And my children...what little miracles they are. My husband...well, he's just the best friend anyone could every ask for. We'll all be OK.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
my knee surgery
I do believe this is the longest it's been without me making a blog post.
I had a right knee arthroscopy with bilateral release on Dec. 5th in order to eliminate/alleviate the pain. My diagnosis is patellofemoral arthritis of both knees. After a total of 12 weeks of physical therapy, the improvement was minimal. So surgery it was. One knee first, to see if there is a vast improvement, and then the other knee later.
I had nothing to eat or drink past midnight the night before with the surgery time at 1:30 the next day. It was quite a long time without so much as a sip of water. Talk about halitosis! I was prepped at 11:30 by a wonderful, but very sensitive nurse. She wanted to give me a numbing injection before the IV. Here I was thinking, wouldn't that be as painful as the IV itself? Nah, I thought. After all, I've had 2 c-sections, I'm a pro.
The IV needle went in, but then blood spurted everyone. The poor nurse was beside herself. "I will clean it up! I will clean it up! I don't want your husband to think you're a guinea pig." I smiled at the woman and told her not to worry about it, my husband has seen worse. Finally my husband was called in, we chatted for a few minutes, and then I was wheeled into the OR. I was looking at the blurry ceiling lights (I had to remove my contacts, and I had no glasses) and the next thing I knew I woke up in recovery room. I remember a lot of noise, probably from the conversation between the doctors and nurses. As I was coming to, I was greeted by a nurse. Since I didn't have my glasses on, I could barely make out her shape. She talked to me and asked if I was a Filipino. I managed to say yes. I think it was highly likely I was snoring every other word I uttered due to the anaesthesia. After a little while, I started to feel pain. I rated it a 8, so the nurse gave me medication. I dozed off, and when I woke up the pain was still the same. So she gave me more mecation. After the 3rd dose of the pain medication, the pain was at 7. After the 4th and last one, the pain was at 3. But then, the room started spinning and I was nauseaous, so the nurse decided I couldn't leave the recovery room yet. The dizziness never went away, but I finally told her that I have vertigo so the dizziness could be due to that.
Finally, I was wheeled to Stage 2. But the ride was too bumpy for me so I vomitted what little I had in my stomach. My husband was finally called back in and the nurse gave him directions for caring for my knee. I do believe the nurse tried to include me on the conversation, but I was snoozing every other sentence.
The amazing thing to me was that I was able to bear weight on my right knee to go to the bathroom. I barely felt pain, but that was no surprise since I was delirious with pain meds and anaesthesia. On the ride home, I was in such a hazy fog, I asked my husband if we could stop by and grab french fries from McDonalds. After heaving at the drive through, he did manage to order in quiet peace. But when I finally got my french fries, it tasted like cardboard! There was my husband mentally saying, "I knew you wouldn't be able to eat that with the anaesthesia still in your system!" After going through 4 surgeries himself, he said he wanted me to learn for myself - plus, he knew I wouldn't listen to him anyway.
The rest of the drive home was full of apparently nonsensical conversation, according to my husband. I felt mentally fine at the time, so I was talking his ears off like normal. My husband told me later that he was quite amused. I remember him telling me that I should just sleep it off and not worry about a thing, and that I was too uptight. I responded with, "No, I'm not! I'm not uptight! I can let it go, just watch me!" and then I was off snoring, apparently with my mouth wide open and my head lolling back, completely missing the head rest.
At home, I went straight to bed. With my husband's help and having to tell me which leg should go first all the way to the top, we managed to the navigate the tall stairs. I was in bed with ice on my knees and hydrocodone on my bedside table. When I settled down in bed, I asked my husband to bring me soup and crackers. Again, I managed to throw up what little I got in. Off to sleep I went.
By the end of the next day, I figured out that the hydrocodone was doing my head in and was probably the one that was making me nauseous. Every time I closed my eyes, I was instantly dreaming about weird things (aliens, amont other things). So I decided to just switch to ibuprofen (4-200mg). I did fine with that and I even often forgot to take it. By Sunday, I was able to go downstairs by myself. Though the first step I took, I slipped. Talk about pain. Pain shot up to my thighs. My husband came up and helped me, but all I could do was rest on the steps and cry. After that , we decided I needed a cain. Thankfully, my father-in-law had one with him.
For the next 2-3 days, I only came downstairs once and came back upstairs for the day. I was able to shower after a few days and just put bandaids on my 2 incisions. It's been almost 2 weeks now, but I still have to have the ace bandage on. Without it my knee cap was moving way too much. I still ice my knees at least once a day to keep the swelling down. Tomorrow I will be going to my doctor for post op and to get the stitches out. I do believe phsyiscal therapy woul be discussed then.
I'm still slightly limping, but am so much better now. Considering that what I've read online from other people who have gone through this surgery, I cound myself pretty lucky. People apparently have little to no control of their quad (thigh muscle) after this surery and therefore could barely lift their legs up.
After limping around in the house, the girls have now imitated how I walk. What silly little things! Very cute though.
My in-laws came the night before my surgery to take care of us. My mother-in-law stayed and cared for us for a week - thank heavens! I think my husband would have committed himself to a mental institution by the end of the first few days if it had been just him caring for the kids and me.
Thank you, Mom & Dad!
I had a right knee arthroscopy with bilateral release on Dec. 5th in order to eliminate/alleviate the pain. My diagnosis is patellofemoral arthritis of both knees. After a total of 12 weeks of physical therapy, the improvement was minimal. So surgery it was. One knee first, to see if there is a vast improvement, and then the other knee later.
I had nothing to eat or drink past midnight the night before with the surgery time at 1:30 the next day. It was quite a long time without so much as a sip of water. Talk about halitosis! I was prepped at 11:30 by a wonderful, but very sensitive nurse. She wanted to give me a numbing injection before the IV. Here I was thinking, wouldn't that be as painful as the IV itself? Nah, I thought. After all, I've had 2 c-sections, I'm a pro.
The IV needle went in, but then blood spurted everyone. The poor nurse was beside herself. "I will clean it up! I will clean it up! I don't want your husband to think you're a guinea pig." I smiled at the woman and told her not to worry about it, my husband has seen worse. Finally my husband was called in, we chatted for a few minutes, and then I was wheeled into the OR. I was looking at the blurry ceiling lights (I had to remove my contacts, and I had no glasses) and the next thing I knew I woke up in recovery room. I remember a lot of noise, probably from the conversation between the doctors and nurses. As I was coming to, I was greeted by a nurse. Since I didn't have my glasses on, I could barely make out her shape. She talked to me and asked if I was a Filipino. I managed to say yes. I think it was highly likely I was snoring every other word I uttered due to the anaesthesia. After a little while, I started to feel pain. I rated it a 8, so the nurse gave me medication. I dozed off, and when I woke up the pain was still the same. So she gave me more mecation. After the 3rd dose of the pain medication, the pain was at 7. After the 4th and last one, the pain was at 3. But then, the room started spinning and I was nauseaous, so the nurse decided I couldn't leave the recovery room yet. The dizziness never went away, but I finally told her that I have vertigo so the dizziness could be due to that.
Finally, I was wheeled to Stage 2. But the ride was too bumpy for me so I vomitted what little I had in my stomach. My husband was finally called back in and the nurse gave him directions for caring for my knee. I do believe the nurse tried to include me on the conversation, but I was snoozing every other sentence.
The amazing thing to me was that I was able to bear weight on my right knee to go to the bathroom. I barely felt pain, but that was no surprise since I was delirious with pain meds and anaesthesia. On the ride home, I was in such a hazy fog, I asked my husband if we could stop by and grab french fries from McDonalds. After heaving at the drive through, he did manage to order in quiet peace. But when I finally got my french fries, it tasted like cardboard! There was my husband mentally saying, "I knew you wouldn't be able to eat that with the anaesthesia still in your system!" After going through 4 surgeries himself, he said he wanted me to learn for myself - plus, he knew I wouldn't listen to him anyway.
The rest of the drive home was full of apparently nonsensical conversation, according to my husband. I felt mentally fine at the time, so I was talking his ears off like normal. My husband told me later that he was quite amused. I remember him telling me that I should just sleep it off and not worry about a thing, and that I was too uptight. I responded with, "No, I'm not! I'm not uptight! I can let it go, just watch me!" and then I was off snoring, apparently with my mouth wide open and my head lolling back, completely missing the head rest.
At home, I went straight to bed. With my husband's help and having to tell me which leg should go first all the way to the top, we managed to the navigate the tall stairs. I was in bed with ice on my knees and hydrocodone on my bedside table. When I settled down in bed, I asked my husband to bring me soup and crackers. Again, I managed to throw up what little I got in. Off to sleep I went.
By the end of the next day, I figured out that the hydrocodone was doing my head in and was probably the one that was making me nauseous. Every time I closed my eyes, I was instantly dreaming about weird things (aliens, amont other things). So I decided to just switch to ibuprofen (4-200mg). I did fine with that and I even often forgot to take it. By Sunday, I was able to go downstairs by myself. Though the first step I took, I slipped. Talk about pain. Pain shot up to my thighs. My husband came up and helped me, but all I could do was rest on the steps and cry. After that , we decided I needed a cain. Thankfully, my father-in-law had one with him.
For the next 2-3 days, I only came downstairs once and came back upstairs for the day. I was able to shower after a few days and just put bandaids on my 2 incisions. It's been almost 2 weeks now, but I still have to have the ace bandage on. Without it my knee cap was moving way too much. I still ice my knees at least once a day to keep the swelling down. Tomorrow I will be going to my doctor for post op and to get the stitches out. I do believe phsyiscal therapy woul be discussed then.
I'm still slightly limping, but am so much better now. Considering that what I've read online from other people who have gone through this surgery, I cound myself pretty lucky. People apparently have little to no control of their quad (thigh muscle) after this surery and therefore could barely lift their legs up.
After limping around in the house, the girls have now imitated how I walk. What silly little things! Very cute though.
My in-laws came the night before my surgery to take care of us. My mother-in-law stayed and cared for us for a week - thank heavens! I think my husband would have committed himself to a mental institution by the end of the first few days if it had been just him caring for the kids and me.
Thank you, Mom & Dad!
Saturday, August 2, 2008
I am a mom of 3 and I have bum knees
Is there ever such a bad combination?
I've been suffering from crunchy knees for the past year and I have never thought anything of it (based on a casual response from my husband when I say my knees make noise). But then one day a couple of months ago, I actually let him hear it. His response was a contorted face that clearly told me the noise my knees make isn't normal.
I saw an orthopaedist and had tests done. And the result is that I have femoral arthritis and before considering surgery we have to try 6 weeks of physical therapy. My physical therapist thinks that I may have had this before and the weight gain with my pregnancy with the twins made it worse (but truth be known, I actually gained more weight with my son than with the twins). I've been holding myself in such a way that required less work from certain muscles, which made my knee caps wear out. Physical therapy then serves to develop those muscles (mostly the inner thighs) to support proper functioning of the knee caps.
After 6 weeks, I returned to see the orthopaedist on Friday and the verdict is "looks like the Physical Therapy is working, let's try 6 more weeks." I swear the whole consult took less than 2 minutes (the girls and I waited in the lobby for 45 minutes, and then waited in the exam room for 30 minutes).
I'm in pain, especially when I go up and down the stairs carrying the twins. But hey, it's better than surgery. I just can't imagine how things will go if I were to be out of commission for even just a week. Between deep squats (which I'm supposed to limit, as it is extremely bad for my knees) to get up and down on the floor to tend to the twins, and walking around the house at my toddler's beck and call, there trully isn't any rest for my bum knees.
Who knew hyper extending my knees could become such a problem. BAD, BAD KNEES! You have disappointment Mommy. Though on the upside, at least it isn't Rheumatoid Arthritis, so good, good knees. No. NO, still.... bad knees! Very bad!
I've been suffering from crunchy knees for the past year and I have never thought anything of it (based on a casual response from my husband when I say my knees make noise). But then one day a couple of months ago, I actually let him hear it. His response was a contorted face that clearly told me the noise my knees make isn't normal.
I saw an orthopaedist and had tests done. And the result is that I have femoral arthritis and before considering surgery we have to try 6 weeks of physical therapy. My physical therapist thinks that I may have had this before and the weight gain with my pregnancy with the twins made it worse (but truth be known, I actually gained more weight with my son than with the twins). I've been holding myself in such a way that required less work from certain muscles, which made my knee caps wear out. Physical therapy then serves to develop those muscles (mostly the inner thighs) to support proper functioning of the knee caps.
After 6 weeks, I returned to see the orthopaedist on Friday and the verdict is "looks like the Physical Therapy is working, let's try 6 more weeks." I swear the whole consult took less than 2 minutes (the girls and I waited in the lobby for 45 minutes, and then waited in the exam room for 30 minutes).
I'm in pain, especially when I go up and down the stairs carrying the twins. But hey, it's better than surgery. I just can't imagine how things will go if I were to be out of commission for even just a week. Between deep squats (which I'm supposed to limit, as it is extremely bad for my knees) to get up and down on the floor to tend to the twins, and walking around the house at my toddler's beck and call, there trully isn't any rest for my bum knees.
Who knew hyper extending my knees could become such a problem. BAD, BAD KNEES! You have disappointment Mommy. Though on the upside, at least it isn't Rheumatoid Arthritis, so good, good knees. No. NO, still.... bad knees! Very bad!
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