Knee surgery coming up, I'm scared!

[weezie]

Help me out folks! Having a scope done next week, meniscus clean-up, aisle 7 .

Anybody have any advice? I'm terrified of more pain but it has to be better than what I'm dealing with now, right? RIGHT?!!! :-(

[Jim3k]

Help me out folks! Having a scope done next week, meniscus clean-up, aisle 7 .

Anybody have any advice? I'm terrified of more pain but it has to be better than what I'm dealing with now, right? RIGHT?!!! :-(

Figure out a way to watch your Tigers during the procedure. Watch a DVD of the Duke playoff games of 2010. I'm partial to the Baylor game, the WVU game and the championship Butler game. But in your case, the most recent Tiger game will do. dunno how to do that without a portable DVR, but maybe there's a way.

Best wishes for a happy outcome.

[sagegrouse]

Help me out folks! Having a scope done next week, meniscus clean-up, aisle 7 .

Anybody have any advice? I'm terrified of more pain but it has to be better than what I'm dealing with now, right? RIGHT?!!! :-(

If you get proper meds, the pain should not be a problem. I used meds in decreasing doses for about a week after surgery and then found that plain old Tylenol did the trick. There may be some pain in rehab, from flexing and strengthening your mended knee, although ice will be helpful.

You might ask questions ahead of time about the anesthesia to be used, the options, and possible after-effects.

Best of luck -- sagegrouse

[weezie]

Check and check. Thank goodness for Thursday afternoon baseball games and appropriate painkiller meds.

[Devil in the Blue Dress]

In addition to the good advice given so far, I would add that the key to managing the pain and making a good recovery will be the PT. Sticking with it and working at it will be a key ingredient to putting pain in the rear view mirror.

[tecumseh]

Cancel your surgery?
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Surgery/Orthopedics/10867

You should know that this is a pretty controversial area with unclear benefits, not at all like a repair of a torn ligament. I speak both as a surgeon, though not orthopedic surgeon and someone who has a fair amount of arthritis in various joints in my body. I personally am pretty skeptical of a "clean out" and scope. Surgery anywhere in the body is traumatic and incites inflammation which is exactly what you are trying to prevent with osteoarthritis, absent any good studies which shows that it works it seems IMHO the better strategy is hang in there and eventually you will probably need a knee replacement if it is bad enough no matter what you do.

Without getting into a public policy debate, doctors are human and their behavior is shaped by many things not the least of which is how they make money. University doctors are usually on salary with some sort of production bonus so they really are not so inclined to recommend a lot of questionable procedures. I would get a second opinion from someone who will not be financially motivated to be procedure oriented.

[weezie]

...doctors are human and their behavior is shaped by many things not the least of which is how they make money. University doctors are usually on salary with some sort of production bonus so they really are not so inclined to recommend a lot of questionable procedures. I would get a second opinion from someone who will not be financially motivated to be procedure oriented.

My husband is a doctor. We're lucky to be able to trust our orthoman.

[Zeke]

Help me out folks! Having a scope done next week, meniscus clean-up, aisle 7 .

Anybody have any advice? I'm terrified of more pain but it has to be better than what I'm dealing with now, right? RIGHT?!!! :-(

You've answered your own question. I've had 2 scopes. Yes, they hurt post op, but they are better than what you have now. Get close to your hydrocodone for a couple weeks. Walk as much as you can but you don't get a medel for overdoing it or for enduring pain. It takes about 4-6 weeks and you're as good as new - more or less.

[devildeac]

My wife had her knee scoped 11/09 (partial meniscectomy and arthrotomy-I'm a physician and I still can't spell some of that stuff) and it took her about 3 months to recover to 90%+ with 20 sessions of PT (at 2 per week) during which she worked really hard, in addition to her home exercises the other 5 days when she was not being tortured, err, educated and treated by her PT. Tecumseh's article was very interesting to read and we wonder whether the 2nd part of the surgery really needed to be done as the other knee had some osteoarthritis but was giving her no pain. She had a steroid injection for some discomfort about 3 months ago and still feels great. A small part of the meniscus had to be resected due to a partial tear as she was almost non-functional due to the pain so there was no doubt about the primary need for that part of the procedure.

She took 2 narcotics post-op and passed out after the 2nd one so the remainder of her rehab analgesics were ice and Alleve.

[OldPhiKap]

In addition to the good advice given so far, I would add that the key to managing the pain and making a good recovery will be the PT. Sticking with it and working at it will be a key ingredient to putting pain in the rear view mirror.

^ This.

Good luck. It is a process, not simply a procedure. But the long-term outcome is generally preferable to a long-suffering ailment.

On the bright side, I bet your post average goes up. Just warn us when you are P.U.I. (Posting Under Influence).

-- OPK

[weezie]

On the bright side, I bet your post average goes up.
-- OPK

LOL, I first interpreted this as "in" the post...

[hudlow]

You're lucky. Back in the 70's when I had my knee worked on to remove a left medial meniscus I think they used an axe to open my knee up by the looks of my scar. Two weeks into recovery I'm reading the paper and they are talking about an amazing new procedure called arthroscopy...

My leg was wrapped in ACE bandages from crotch to ankle.

My prescribed therapy consisted of tying weights to my foot and doing knee lifts.

Best of luck to you. Follow your doctors' orders to the "T", eat good and milk it for all you can get out of it with family and friends.

hud

[jaytoc]

In the past decade I had my left knee 'scoped twice. My general reaction is that the snipping was necessary, relieved considerable discomfort, and permitted me to return to my normal regimen of physical activity, within reason. There are times, of course, when it seems to me that there isn't much cushion left in there; probably because that's true.

The only painful moment occurred at the post-op examination a few days following my first procedure. Sawbones allowed as he had to drain some fluid from the battlefield, asked my wife and daughter to leave the room (that was a tip-off), and proceeded to stick what I can only assume was an industrial-size hypo into my knee, drawing away its content for what seemed like hours (probably only a few seconds). I levitated off the exam table. Other than that, I never needed any of the pain-killers prescribed, and was exercising (running) within a week of the surgery.

My advice to avoid the fluid problem is to carefully follow the post-op instructions - keep your knee elevated and iced. You should have no problem.

[DevilWearsPrada]

Weezie, keep us posted on your surgery. Thoughts, prayers and vibes going to you for a successful surgery and in hopes that YOU have GREAT MEDS!!!

(((((( HUGS))))))))

[camion]

I've had two arthroscopic surgeries for cartilage tears. I can't say much more about recovery except to reiterate sticking to your PT regimen.

One thing I would add is that I prefer showering to other forms of full body cleansing. My method while I was still bandaged was to stuff the leg in a garbage bag with an elastic band to provide a seal. I learned this when I was in a cast for six weeks recovering from ACL surgery.

[Jarhead]

About 25 years ago I had my knee scoped for meniscus problems. I don't remember much about it, except for the nurse shaving my knee, and the difficulty in getting home. Mrs. Jarhead had a Buick Somerset two door car, and I had the same GMC S15 I drive today. She still refuses to drive it, so on leaving the hospital we had use the Somerset. I couldn't sit in the front seat, so I entered backwards into the back set. That was okay until it came time to get out of the car. That was the only major pain I experienced through the whole process.

[Greg_Newton]

Man, just be thankful that it's not something more serious. You never realize what a blessing it is just to have a path to recovery - even if it's painful and not fun - until you go through something where there's not one.

That said, expect your 3-point shooting to drop about 5% post-surgery...

[greybeard]

Help me out folks! Having a scope done next week, meniscus clean-up, aisle 7 .

Anybody have any advice? I'm terrified of more pain but it has to be better than what I'm dealing with now, right? RIGHT?!!! :-(

I come out of retirement for a brief comment. It seems to me that you are concerned less with the pain of the surgery, than with how your knee will cooperate or not with the movements you might want or need to undertake long after the knee has been "fixed" and the pain gone. However, looking at the knee as if it were a simple machine will not get you very far. How force is transmitted throughout your skelleton, in which joints it is blocked, and how your perceptions (where you look and where you don't to understand your shortcomings when it comes to performance, is I think at the bottom of the issue, not only your future enjoyment of movement but also perhaps understanding how your "knee problem" was brought about in the first place. A reductionist perspective, seeing the pain in your knee as the condition, the torn meniscus as the problem, surgery and someone pulling and tugging on your knee as the correction, will not improve how you use yourself to accomplish what you choose.

Are there options, is there a way to come to understand your knee as part of a system that transmits force through the skelleton that is out of whack, that does not distribute movement through more parts of you than you currently even perceive as a possility, and help you choose from options other than what is habbitual? "Hi ho Silver away!"

PS No one ever learned anything from being pulled or tugged or pushed except to stay away. "Pain passes, chicks dig scars, but glory lasts forever." It'll be a piece of cake, but good luck anyway, Grey

[Indoor66]

I come out of retirement for a brief comment. It seems to me that you are concerned less with the pain of the surgery, than with how your knee will cooperate or not with the movements you might want or need to undertake long after the knee has been "fixed" and the pain gone. However, looking at the knee as if it were a simple machine will not get you very far. How force is transmitted throughout your skelleton, in which joints it is blocked, and how your perceptions (where you look and where you don't to understand your shortcomings when it comes to performance, is I think at the bottom of the issue, not only your future enjoyment of movement but also perhaps understanding how your "knee problem" was brought about in the first place. A reductionist perspective, seeing the pain in your knee as the condition, the torn meniscus as the problem, surgery and someone pulling and tugging on your knee as the correction, will not improve how you use yourself to accomplish what you choose.

Are there options, is there a way to come to understand your knee as part of a system that transmits force through the skelleton that is out of whack, that does not distribute movement through more parts of you than you currently even perceive as a possility, and help you choose from options other than what is habbitual? "Hi ho Silver away!"

PS No one ever learned anything from being pulled or tugged or pushed except to stay away. "Pain passes, chicks dig scars, but glory lasts forever." It'll be a piece of cake, but good luck anyway, Grey

Nice to see you out of "retirement." Welcome back. I have missed your commentary. Please don't be a stranger.

[weezie]

I come out of retirement for a brief comment.... It'll be a piece of cake, but good luck anyway, Grey

Thank you great greybearded one. I am touched that you would take the time to reassure me. Really!