question about knee surgery?

Don't worry about Douglas's answer, he's not a health care professional himself and has a personal vendetta against physical therapists and doesn't really have a full understanding of what we can/cannot do. Nor does he understand the normal post operative course after a TKA. And his answer to everything is "it's because a tendon has shortened and the muscle is being pinched and needs to released"...surprisingly, he's the only one in the world who seems to have the answer for relieving "pinched muscles". which appears to be a series of self discovered maneuvers which have not scientific validity and is anatomically impossible in the cases he describes...but I digress....

Regarding your knee. It's common to have some type of extension lag after knee replacement...7 degrees is significant, but it's not the worst I've seen. If your knee is persistently swollen, this can be the cause right there. Being a PT who specializes in both orthopedic care and lymphedema management, I find that sometimes managing the edema is all that is needed to relieve both the pain and the extension lag.

However, what is concerning at this point is the amount of pain you have. Swelling or not, this needs to be investigated further. You should be essentially pain free by the third month with only mild, transient pain and edema. I'd be concerned for either a low grade infection or prosthetic loosening in your case. I would not wait to see the doctor if you are having pain anymore than a 4/10 on the 0-10 scale. Don't worry so much about the straightening until this other issue has been addressed.

I don't think the physical therapist should have done anything to you until you were seen by your dr. What good is doing p.t. if something is wrong that needs to be corrected? I would raise holey heck about that one itself. I think you should see your dr. right away or if you aren't sure about him see another one. If someone put something in me and put it in wrong I would think twice about seeing that person again. I have dropped dr.'s for less than that.

One last thing about knees is that often knees give a lot of trouble because the tendon for the kneecap shortens up pulling the kneecap up on and into the knee making it hard to bend the knee as well as painful. Most dr.'s tell you it's arthritis and do things that never help out the situation. All that has to be done is release the tendon and it goes back to it's rightful place and the pains are gone. Dr.'s don't make any money giving out advice like that though so you more than likely will never hear it from them.

She might be great. My husband had knee surgical procedure three years in the past and he is great. Technology in this day and age are very nontoxic. Don't fear. I understand she is fearful and I additionally might be with any surgical procedure, however simply don't forget, they do understand what they're doing and participate in knee surgical procedures daily. They do have any person who will watch over her crucial indicators even as surgical procedure is in approach. I'm certain they've a quality crew to defend her.