Knees & Hips

Mishap,you have a broken foot on top of a joint operation and you are walking and exercising! You are very brave and an inspiration to me to keep on moving.

amarmai - thanks for your kind words. My broken foot occurred over two years ago but only one of the two fractures healed (due to a misdiagnosis) and this has resulted in the joints collapsing and rubbing against oine another. The possible surgery for this is know to be unsuccessful in many cases so I have opted not to have this - I just limp and walk with a stick outdoors.

mishap, i am cringing reading that you are walking with a broken foot and more damage as a result of the misdiagnosis plus the aftermath of a joint replacement. Brave is not the right word-i now say heroic . Also i wonder if there is an orthopedic support device that could help your foot in some way. I have one that looks like a corset for a long skinny doll for my collapsible knee.

Can anyone help?
I am now two weeks post-op and getting on very well during the day. My problem is that, come the evening, my 'bad' leg jumps and cramps and generally makes it impossible to sit still and this state of affairs continues most of the night. My GP has given me quinine sulphate tablets which help a bit but I am spending an awful lot of the small hours just lying there in discomfort. I should add that I am religiously doing the exercises and going for short walks. :-(

PS I should have said that my op was for total hip replacement.

NotTooOld have you tried lying with a pillow under your knees so that your hip is relaxed more, I know when I had to lie on my back all night I couldn't relax but having the pillow under my knees helped a lot..

I am still having difficult nights, although I have not had the jumps and cramps you describe - just pain.

I have a rubber ring (blown up a very small amount) under my bum, a rolled up cot quilt under my thighs, two pillows under my knees, and a pile of pillows at my head end. In fact it is quite hard to find me at all surrounded by all this bedding! - but it does help a bit. I also have a sheepskin where my feet land, and wear think bed socks so that my heels do not get sore in the night.

All very romantic and full of passion!

I was not given exercises (apart from gradually increased walking) after the hip replacement but was told I shouldn't lift the leg sideways. After a later consultation with the specialist physio I was told that it was OK to swim, but to be very careful with the breast stroke kick because that involved sideways movement. For a while I did breast stroke with a freestyle kick which must have looked a bit weird. Breast stroke is no problem now - after almost 10 years. As for sleeping, I slept on the 'good' side with a pillow between my knees and rarely lost sleep.

Have revived this thread to give you all an update (you know you want one!) I am now 2 weeks and 4 days post THR. I have become used to sleeping on my back and now generally get a good night's sleep. I am doing the exercises regularly and taking a short walk down our road every day. I am still using two crutches but think I will soon be on just one. My wound is healing nicely and I no longer need to keep it covered. I have finished the medication except for the anti-coagulant of which I have to take one every tea time and I take one quinine sulphate tablet each night, as prescribed by the GP, to ward off the leg cramps.

However, I do have a problem. Each evening I develop a terrible itch, mostly on bum, back and scalp and spend the few hours before bed grumbling and scratching and generally wearing myself out. There is nothing to see on my skin except some redness where I scratch. The listed side effects of the anti-coagulant do include skin irritation but then so do the side effects of most drugs, I've found.

When I finally get to bed, feeling exhausted, the itchiness abates and I drop off to sleep quite quickly. I think this problem MUST be to do with the anti-coag and I still have 20 of those to go - at a doseage of one a day, that's nearly another three weeks. Yesterday evening I tried taking one Piritron but it made no difference at all.

Has anyone else experienced this? Will it wear off soon? Am I just making a fuss?

Sory you have this problem - and no I did not have this. ?Talk to GP.

Time is flying.

I assume that you have been prescribed Piriton to take more than once a day and that you take the anticoagulant tablet in the evening. Why not take a Piriton, if prescibed, a few hours before, and then repeat after or with the anticoagulant. Do not forget that one of the side effects is drowsiness so if you increase the dose to two tablets a day- it may have consequences. Please be careful. I have forgotten if you should take Piriton 4 or 6 hourly.

I do not think that you are making a fuss- I have not experienced it and I do not know if it will wear off soon.

Thank you, Mishap and Charleygirl. I am not keen to take more than one Piriton as it does make me very drowsy. When I think about it, any other problems I have had post-op have generally gone away in a short time so I think I will press on and hope the itches disappear. I have an early appointment to see the consultant on 13/4 - it should have been the following week but he is going away - so I will leave it until then and ask him what he thinks. If I can't stand it I will have to contact my GP again. Thanks for your advice.

My hip has been great the last two days and is now very painful again - so annoying as I was getting quite excited!

Have resurrected this thread as am having a bad day today. I will be 4 weeks post-THR on Tuesday and have been doing well, both physically and mentally. I am down to using one crutch, doing the exercises and taking walks and have taken very few paracetamol in the last couple of days. However, today things are different. For no good reason, I feel depressed and my hip aches more than it has done lately. I have been out in the car a couple of times (not driving) and that should have cheered me up but it hasn't. Incidentally, getting in and out of the car was no problem, so it can't be that. Why do I suddenly feel I am going down hill?

Oh dear NotTooOld, it isn't unusual to hit a sort of plateau, I'm sure it'll be temporary and you're not sliding downhill.
Have you been doing a bit too much the last few days? It could just be your body saying you've overdone it a bit.
You have done really well, so don't get too despondent, it's just a blip. x

Do not panic! I have been there; and have simply come to the conclusion that it is not a smooth run back to full health and mobility and that I have to resign myself to bad days mixed in with the good. I got very depressed at one stage, and was told that it is possible to become depressed after surgery - a combination of the general trauma, blood loss, pain, assorted drugs etc.

But this too will pass. My physio tells me that some people take a year to fully recover from hip surgery - they do not tell you this beforehand! - but that everyone gets there in the end.

They said that the up-and-down nature of the recovery was sometimes related to new bits of healing going on; and inflammation irritating other bits.

The most annoying thing was seeing friends who bounced back in a trice from their surgery - I am pleased for them, but,being only human, it is hard to swallow.

Really 4 weeks is nothing and there will be days when progress seems slow - or even backwards - but you just have to hang on in there.

I do feel for you - don't despair. - I've previewed this message twice and the flowers do not appear - sorry

Ah - they did when I posted it!

NTO, don't worry that is par for the course (or was for me). I guess we all have expectations of our recovery and if it does not live up to it, we get depressed. You have had major surgery and it does take a toll on your system that can take months to overcome. In a few days you will feel fine again. Before long you will reach the stage when you forget about your hip entirely.
It appears (form another thread) that I can pray for you, so I will.

Thank you, both, for your sensible advice. I'm going to cheer up now.

Thank you, too, Pompa. Yes, give a prayer a go - you never know!

I sometimes wonder if those who bounce back really do!
After reconstruction work on my ankle I put one face on in public and bawled my eyes out from time to time when alone!
Certainly the anaesthetic, painkillers and sheer exasperation got to me sometimes!

I have had a lot of major surgery from my Mid twenties onwards. Such surgery can take a long while to recover from (luckily for me, surgery was the answer every time). As I remember within a year of the completion of treatment, I was always back to normal (my kidney problems were spread over several years before being solved). At this moment, my new knee is OK. but does not feel normal, see what another 6 months brings

Can anyone tell me how long I should be wearing the surgical stockings for, please? I am still wearing them all the time but now I am 4 weeks post-op I am getting really fed up with them and would like to take them off except that DH thinks I should wear them until I see the consultant again a week tomorrow. (He worries about me.)

I was told 6 weeks, which i did. your DH is quite right (as we always are of course)

I never had surgical stockings - thank goodness; it was a hot summer when my hip was replaced. But I did have a black and blue stomach from three weeks of anti-coagulant injections.