guam's osteotomy

[NickiAnn]

Hi,

I wanted to empathize with the frustration your feeling with the long recovery.  I had femoral and tibial osteotomies last November and am still in the thick of my recovery (I kept a post-op diary under the heading Nicki Ann's Crazy Derotational Osteotomy).  It takes weeks for me to notice even small improvements.  I still walk with a noticeable limp. 

My doctor, though, told me flat out that the recovery would be at least a year, so I'm trying not to lose too much patience. We need to hang in there and remember that we did these major surgeries for the long haul!

[smartdriver]

every knee surgery of mine seems to have been a failure.  my knees also feel like they belong to an 83 year old rather than a 38 year old.

I hope for your sake that the surgery is not a failure.  Do you need to have the other leg done?

After a 6 hour flight, being at a conference for a week, where I walked (A LOT!) and then flying home, my knees ache so bad now I can't stand it    I used to be an avid walker, usually walking at least an hour a day.  But now, after walking 5 or 6 blocks, I can feel the pain setting in my knees - all on the medial side.  And walking on any kind of incline is a guaranteed way to do my knees in.  The pain is much worse now than it ever was before surgery.  And nothing really seems to help.  It's really frustrating and I don't understand how the pain can be so much worse.   

[guam]

i just came from an expo in hong kong and was walking for about 5 hours a day for 3 days.  not to mention the 7 hours of plane rides each way.  my knee seems to respond well to lots of movement.  it seems the more i move, the less i limp.  i seemed to walk without any limp throughout the day.  of course, at the end of the day, i'm glad to be off my feet.  my feet seemed to hurt more than my knees on this trip.  i still limped in the morning though.  that went away by the time i got to the lobby of my hotel.
this isn't to say i don't have knee pain still.  inclines are still bothering me.  so did going down the stairs to and from the train stations.  and my knee still really hurts every time my leg gets caught on something, forcing it to be pulled suddenly.  this pain reminds me that i'm not ready for lots of activities, even though i keep thinking i'm ready right before each incident.  oh well.  patience is a virtue.
very slowly, my knee feels better each month, but Damn! it's frustrating

[drmark]

My car was making some foul noises last week.  I made an appointment with the dealer, brought it in at 7am, and picked it up at 5pm.  And now it works great!


Humans need to realize that they are not cars or electrical appliances.  Healing takes time.  Most patients who have had serious knee or shoulder surgery of any type require six months to return to most activities, but continue to take note of their repaired part for one year.

[guam]

thanks for chiming in doc.  i use this forum as a reference for my healing.  some days it's good, some days it's bad.  so far, i'm pretty happy with my progress.  it's also great to go back to an old post and see how i felt on a certain day. other than sports out of the equation, i can do my day to day activities without problems.  even going to the gym, i can do most of my old workouts. 

thanks for suggesting i have a diary.  hope it helps anyone who may be looking at getting the same surgery, or has already had it..

even for my past meniscus surgeries, it always took about 5 months before i surfed again.  And this surgery is waaayy more major than those were.  i'm slowly beginning to feel the majority of my shinbone again (from where the incision was).  it's been numb since the surgery and i've been getting felling back again.  some days it will be leaning on something hot and i barely notice it. 

[guam]

since getting back from my trip, my knee has felt much better.  i'm positive it was due to all the walking i did.  walked up and down lots of steps, even though it meant pain going down.  not as bad as i thought it might be though.  after 3 days of walking 5-6 hours a day, i haven't limped since then.  not even when i wake up in the morning.  i'm gonna attempt to use swimfins sometime this week.  i'm a little scared, but if i can swim with them, that means i'm that much closer to getting back in the water to surf again. 

still some pain once in a while, but much less this past week.  feeling really good about my recovery this past week.  but my recovery seems to have been that way since i got my surgery.  no signs of progress, then all of a sudden, a spike, then nothing for a few weeks again.  i wish it was a steady progression, but hills and valleys are better than no progress at all.  it means the knee is working.

good luck again to you all

[guam]

been kind of lazy to go to the pool lately.  i even bought some training fins to get me a little more enthusiastic, but i've just been lazy.  hopefully, i'll get to the pool this week.  i think the laziness is due to the fact that we're approaching what surfers refer to as the "flat season," which means that this time of year, we usually don't have waves to surf for about 3-4 months.  and getting back to surfing has always been my motivation to get better.

haven't had any problems walking with a normal gait since i last posted. no accidents so that's good.  i'm even able to kneel on my bad knee now, just not for long periods.  i've really been wanting to ride my bike around again but there's been so much construction around my little island that i don't want to deal with it.  drivers here are getting road rage with all the road closures.  i guess i'll stick to stationary bike and elliptical machine for the time being

[pennstatexc]

Thank you for posting your recovery process Guam! I just had my HTO on Monday and am beginning the arduous journey back to somewhat normal functioning.  Best of luck with your continued progress and will look to keep in touch!

[guam]

Best of luck to you too pennstate.  As my doc told me, "let pain be your guide."  you'll know what you can and can't do

[guam]

i finally put the swimfins on in the pool and to my surprise, there was no pain.  i couldn't get the huge smile off my face.  it's one step closer to me getting back to bodyboarding again.  I was told I should be able to surf again by september.  I'm hoping to cut that by 3 months and surf again in June.  I can't get too far ahead of myself though.  I still have a lot of work to do. 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Isn't is great to get back to all the activities that we had to give up for knees!! I have found swimming a great way to help my own HTO recovery, and can't wait to go back to bodyboarding myself this summer.

Bet you are really pleased to get back in the water, be ruled by your body and don't push it too hard to start with.

Enjoy your new life.

WD

[guam]

finally got to bodyboard for the first time today!  kept worrying about wiping out, but it wasn't so bad once it happened, even after hitting reef a little bit.  most of the pain was more on the incision, but again, not so bad.  have been practicing using fins in the pool and did lots of situational drills before actually getting in the ocean and it's paid off.
happy to be in the water again and hoping for more waves

[guam]

Had a little bit of a scare the past few days. Have been walking around a lot as I have been traveling and the other day when I woke up, not only was my knee feeling additional pain than normal, but my hip was also causing me a lot of pain when walking.  I thought to myself that I can't possible have messed up my hip also, but it seems to be getting better now.

 I'll be monitoring this situation closely. Im guessing it has something to do with the q angle of my hip to knee. I'm not sure, but it was painful enought to have me waddling from airport to airport. Im just happy there's less pain today. I'm hoping that's a good sign because when my hip hurt bad it seemed to put additional stress on my knee forcing it to buckle a lot. Haven't had that kind of setback in a while. There's still some pain, but much less than yesterday and the day before.

[drmark]

hip pain radiates to the knee.  Knee pain doesnt' radiate to the hip.  Get you hip and your low back check out.

[guam]

Thanks doc. I may be hitting you up on the way back home