@Tribesters wrote:
@sfnative
Glad they got it all straightened out for you.
I must admit your 3 knee surgeries was what drew me to your post. My Dad has had 3 total knee replacements. Long story short he never recovered from 1st one- kept insisting something was wrong. Surgeon told him it was all in his head. He suffered for over a year. Finally went to different doctor & was told his kneecap was sideways. Apparently they did a total knee replacement but left his kneecap? Anyhow new doctor ended up doing his other knee first & then redid 1st one to replace kneecap. Fast forward several years & he still can’t walk & is in terrible pain. No one can find the source of his pain & second doctor insists the new knees are fine.
Would be interested in hearing more about your surgical errrors- if you feel like sharing. Always looking for anything that might help my Dad. He’ll be 82 this month so I doubt he’ll ever recover. The only time he’s not in pain is when he’s laying down so that’s what he does most of the day. My Mom tries to get him up & about but he is just in too much pain.
@Tribesters
I am truly sorry to hear of the absolutely horrible, terrible knee replacement surgery gone bad for your father.
Up front I'll tell you that I have not had 3 surgeries on my knee replacement knee. Perhaps I was not clear on that. However, as with many others, did not require the surgery due to an arthritic and painful knee. Actually, my knee didn't hurt at all. Thing is it keep buckling/collapsing, causing me at work walking down the hall with a large and heavy tray of surgical instruments to crash into the wall to my left. Or, fall crashing into cars, while walking to my car in the employee parking garage, etc. Found out I had developed a valgus knee, which would only get worse, hence the knee replacement.
The morning after surgery I was doing a self-assessment of my lower left extremity and realized I could not move my toes; my foot was numb; and, I had very limited range of motion of my left ankle. Asked for the Charge Nurse to get my surgeon in here and in the mean time, get the Neurologist on call in here. The first to show up was the anesthesiologist who was in the O.R. with me. He did a comprehensive evaluation, left, came back to repeat it with additional items to do. My surgeon did not show until Day 3. He sort of grumbled through his 2 minute stay, indicating he wanted to see me in his office in 2 weeks. At the time of that visit, he had arranged for me to have an EMG and nerve conduction study on the nerves from behind the knee and below. Of great import: The neuro conducting these 2 studies could not get a read on the tibial nerve. Try as she might, she told me, "This is very strange. I simply cannot get a read on the tibial nerve. In TKAs, if there's nerve damage, it's usually to the peroneal nerve." My take-away was that my surgeon had injured the tibial nerve to such an extent that no signal could pass through it. It's also possible that during the process of using the electric saw to remove bone and dissecting through the field, it was actually cut through, to put it simply. This neuro also indicated she was getting a minimal read on the sural nerve. This accounted for the issues in the foot and ankle, which exist to this day (4+ years later).
Now to the huge pain in my knee. I returned to my surgeon during post-op rehab to complain of at least moderate pain on the lateral or outside aspect of my knee, a bit on the front and slightly below a line drawn across the front of the knee parallel to the crease in the back. This pain was and continues to wake me at night (except when I use new CBD ointment #5). My surgeon took a look, poked around, etc., and said, "It appears that the ITB insertion retraction during surgery was a bit aggressive." What he meant was that (I know from professional experience) in retracting the soft tissue, the person doing that, probably using a Richardson retractor, caught the ITB insertion, which is never, ever supposed to occur. It became mangled. It now hurts more than it ever did.
It took me more than 4 years, but I finally found the one knee surgeon in this city who will see failed knee replacement surgeries. Though pleased to have found him, he has me in PT (which has increase my pain 10 fold) and told me, "We're going to start with physical therapy." Then, in closing, he said, "You have a lot going on in your knee that shouldn't be going on..." I added the "..." because he only explained that the knee is clicking and shouldn't be clicking. Nothing else was explained. I didn't ask, because I didn't want to place a negative spin on his recognition of the fact that there is indeed 'stuff' going on. I'll return to him, once PT has concluded, which shouldn't be too much longer, due to the fact that the swelling and pain in my knee increase with each PT visit.
I don't know if you've found this helpful. My advice would be to ask around for the ortho large joint specialist in your county who will evaluate failed/problematic total knee replacements. I found my new doc by asking who is THE best knee surgeon in my rather new city (been here only 4.5 years) and got a referral to him. When I called that office for my first appointment and spoke with that surgeon's assistant, he told me Dr. J does not see failed TKAs. He always refers them to Dr. F, who sees all failed or problematic TKAs. That was my a-ha moment. Of course, I still can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but am hopeful. Hope you've found something here helpful.
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