Knee relacement ( not the wooden kind)

[perchance]

Any one here cruising with bionic knees? I have an appointment with the "Saw Bones" tomorrow to find out when they are going to hack the ends of my knee joint off and give me a new knee.
I would like to hear from those of you have undergone this procedure and what your outcomes were.
The few people I have spoken to seem to indicate mixed results from really good to a waste of time.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by perchance

Any one here cruising with bionic knees? I have an appointment with the "Saw Bones" tomorrow to find out when they are going to hack the ends of my knee joint off and give me a new knee.
I would like to hear from those of you have undergone this procedure and what your outcomes were.
The few people I have spoken to seem to indicate mixed results from really good to a waste of time.

My father had it done about 25 years ago. Not a sailor but very active outdoorsman and he was very happy with the results. Even though it was older technology and not totally like a new knee I believe if he had not had the replacement his activity level would have been much more restricted in those years. This even though he was pretty overweight so put a lot of stress on the joint.

The biggest negative was the PT that started pretty much as soon as he was out of surgery. The first week or so of that was not fun.

[zeehag]

fake knees should not impede your ability to sail unless you are lazy and do not do your exercises and stiffen up like a stick.
do your exercises especially after the healing of the incision, in a pool, so you have work against resistance--best workout ever, and faster strengthening

[perchance]

Thanks for the advise. I'm not ready to move into Geezerville yet as I have some things on the bucket list left to do.

[boatman61]

Came very close to having a plastic knee after a bike smash in the '80's.. luckily the surgeon liked jig saws and managed to wire the several bits together.. and it worked.. Still going strong...

[JPA Cate]

Perchance,

Skipmac and Zeehag have the right of it, as far as it goes. I had bilateral tkrs done in May 2011. I have a woman friend who had some done, and she is actively cruising, and has done just fine. I have two men friends who had the same surgeon as me, and theirs have gone quite well. Unfortunately, I have had a problem--I won't go into the details, just to say it is a very rare (less than 2% of tkrs) failure mode, and falls into the unavoidable bad luck category.

The recovery period, while tough, is tolerable, and if you work hard with your physical therapy you will see wonderful improvement. It doesn't happen as fast as you want. I couldn't see improvement week to week, but could, if I looked at a two week time frame. I found the use of the hydrotherapy pool best for me in that less swelling occurred after exercise, and I was still able to build strength and mobility. But the weight training is necessary to, to build muscle mass.

Good luck, and we wish you a speedy recovery!

[zeehag]

my mommy has 2 hips and a knee--i made her get titanium hips and she chose her knee--as a lively fullaspunk 84 yr old, the woman is totally hot. active and yes i was mean to her--i told her to do work against resistance and hard stuff--she is a goood girl. she may well live to 120. that is reason i gave her for titanium..LOL..and she will be able to walk for loooong time--doesnt even have a limp after all that working

[Teknav]

Look on the bright side, a lot of sailors crossed the seven seas with peg-legs and armed hooks! Mauritz

[perchance]

Good news bad news I suppose. The Doc says I'm good for a couple years yet and he will do the Arthroscopic clean and scrape to relive the pain somewhat but I have to wait till after sailing season which is a good thing.
The bright light in all this is the Surgeon is the same one who did my family Doctors hip replacement.
Kind of like the mechanic the mechanics take their cars to

[JPA Cate]

Perchance,
My physical therapist told me people vary considerably in their ability to tolerate pain, and some can use their worn out knees for a long time. If there's any chance that the less invasive procedure, the arthroscopic clean and scrape, will do the trick for you, GO FOR IT! You may get a lot more good service out of your knee, the recovery is much easier, too. I've had 3 of those, all told, and after the first one my knee was better than it had been for 20 yrs.! Needed no pain meds after one night, the chilling knee wrap took care of it. Your original knees are the best ones, trust me.

Good luck with it.

[perchance]

Thanks for the encouragement Ann. I agree that my own knee is probably better than a replacement. I do have a high pain tolerance but I worry that the knee will let me down at the worst possible time.

[Snore]

Glad to hear the news as I did not want to post this until I heard it.


I have had three knee surgeries for torn meniscus. You know your knees are bad when the X-Ray tech says "WOW you got some arthritis is in there!" That said... I am avoiding even speaking to the doctors about knee replacement because replacement knees cannot take the abuse real knees can. Mounting titanium onto bone means that the bone will chafe if stressed. I know someone this has happened to. This is not opinion it is simple physics. Metal is harder than bone...

May I suggest the following therapy routine. Do the surgery. Buy only good shoes to walk in. Walk often. Drink Jack Daniels (in reasonable moderation) for pain.

Finally, there is this juice that the orthopedist has shot into my knees. I believe it is made from some part of the rooster (really). The shots are not cortisone, but do take away all pain for a few months. Oh, FYI, the shots hurt like hell.

Hang in there... Being active and getting old is not for the faint of heart!