My knee replacement six months afterward

I admit to being taken aback when asked whether I’m glad I decided to have a knee replaced. Choosing between walking and worsening immobility seemed no choice at all.

But now that it’s six months after total knee replacement, I’m happy to be questioned about the recovery process and how I’m doing. 

I’m doing well, thank you. My steps average more than 8,000 a day and have exceeded 10,000 on many days. Kneeling was the last milestone met. 

Still, my knee doesn’t feel normal yet. “When you’re not aware of your knee, you’re fully recovered,” my surgeon said. I’m aware of a tingling sensation that’s not painful. Full recovery can take a year, she said. I may be 80% now.

There is still stiffness getting out of bed or a chair, but that’s considered normal, and it goes away after a few steps. I cling to the handrail on stairs, mostly out of fear of falling. My walking pace is slow but should speed up over time.

I’ve already written about the immediate postsurgery period. I was more tired than expected, not anticipating how much major surgery stresses the whole body. 

The recovery has been overwhelmingly about physical therapy, both with a therapist and on my own. A therapist came into my condo six times the first three weeks, beginning three days after surgery. Then I went to a PT clinic twice a week for eight weeks and weekly for another seven weeks. Allen, my therapist, prescribed exercises to do every day I wasn’t seeing him. There were quad sets, leg raises, stretches with and without weights, bridges, squats, and more. 

I thought I was doing well and then hit a bump at eight weeks when my knee extension (straightening) was measured at 8 degrees. The new knee should be able to fully extend — 0 degrees — or be at least under 5 degrees or symmetrical with the other knee. Otherwise, one leg is shorter than the other, causing limping. 

Reading that the critical time to regain full extension is six to eight weeks after surgery discouraged me. The next PT session was the only time Allen and I were short with one another. I wondered why we hadn’t been emphasizing extension exercises from the start, and he asked whether the surgeon hadn’t told me how long full recovery takes. 

At least I didn’t have a problem with flexion (bending). My knee could bend 120 degrees, the goal, within two months.

Allen added more extension exercises — lying on my back, lying on my stomach, sitting, weighted — to my home regimen. At the clinic he did a lot of manipulation of the knee to break up scar tissue, which interferes with the extension. That was the only part of PT that hurt.

We got the extension down to 3 degrees, nearly identical to my left knee’s 2 degrees, 4½ months post surgery. Allen released me from PT with knee exercises to continue every other day until six months out. Then I could exercise the same as anyone else, as he put it.  

I started out saying I didn’t consider knee replacement optional. That statement should be qualified: If you won’t commit to prescribed daily exercise for four or five months, you probably wouldn’t recover well from the surgery.