Brother is layed up in a nursing home right now, after having his leg sawed off in two places and a prosthetic knee joint put in.
Man, he sounds bad. Lots of pain even with the big dog painkillers.
I have to go up and take care of him when he gets outta the nursing home, have to build some things to make things easier for him, take him to the bathroom etc...... No, I am drawing the line at wiping him. LOL

Anyone else experienced this? What can he expect? How much down time?

 

i had my lt knee done 2 times 3/00 and again 8/03 and now i'm totaly disabled. the dr. called it a failure. lol
lots of big pain, and er pain meds. NO fun !!!

Marc

 

He must have some complications? My wife puts them in every week and she states the patients are up and walking the next day with a walker and physical therapist at thier side unless some sort of problems,ie; weight problems,infection,other knee is weak, age, etc. She states that he will be on a walker for several weeks after. Goodluck,,,Rick If you need some further advice let me know. She also said not to fall for the wiping trick as he should be able to fend for his self in that area

 

Our general manager has had an artificial hip for 30+ years. It gives him a limp occationally, and he has to have work done every few years to adjust for bone loss.

 

My father-inlaw had one done. He didn't follow thru with the theraphy and now does not have full extension.

On the other side, my mom had both done. One at 79 and the other at 80. She stuck with the rehab and walks fine now with no pain.

 

I was in a motorcycle accident last year, truck ran a stop sign and took off my leg above the knee. I got a C-Leg. Pretty good technology.

Stay away from neurontin. oxycontin is good, too good. kicking the oxy was two weeks of hell. After a year I'm back to work and walking without a cane.
Can't drive a stick though.

After two months in ICU you realize that there is always someone worse off than you.
rog

 

Too bad about your accident. It's a good thing they make the CDT with a auto.

 

What is bad about the Neurontin? I have been useing it for a while now in small doseage.

 

i have had 8 surgeries to my left knee in the last 3 yrs and they will not do a knee replacement because of my age(30)they said it would have to be redone in the next 15 yrs or so so i'll just have to deal w/it.they have me on some strong pain meds..

40mg oxycotin 2x's daily
10mg lortab 3x's daily
and a antiinflamitory

when it rains out......the pain is so bad that the pain meds dont even help w/the pain at all............

 

I don't know if it has any bad effects but it was prescribed to me "off label" to treat nerve damage I have in my arms. It's actually a treatment for epelepsy. The Drug Company was pushing it's use for Bipolar Disorder to increase it's sales. Unfortunately there is no law against a doctor prescribing any drug for any reason. Neurontin is unfortunately NOT any good for Bipolar Disorder and some people had very bad effects because they were switched to it from what they were taking. The neurontin didn't hurt but it didn't help either. They did a TV news magazine special on it as I remember.

If you're getting it for pain or nerve damage just remember that it's an "off label" use and the FDA has not tested it to be efficatious for anything other than what they say it's for. It probably won't hurt you but it don't help for pain and in my case I can attest it does nothing for nerve damage either.

If you type the drug name into Google you will usually find plenty of info about it. I do this with ALL drugs I'm prescribed to see if the doctor did his homework or is being compensated by the drug companies to push it. Basically it's getting hard to trust doctors nowadays. IMHO.

Edwin

 

my father in law had it done in december and was back to work in a week on crutches. hes done his therepy at home like clockl work and has had a lot of pain. they say he built up scar tissue and need to go back in and get it out soo and he should be better. mean while im hauling in the wood and scoring brownie points

 

Bro is doing better, still in quite a bit of pain. He got lucky and insurance paid for a nursing home so he can get the physical therapy he needs. It is kinda hard to drive yourself to PT when you are single and live kinda out in the sticks. I think he is getting released from the nursing home this mon. or tue. so I will be going to stay with him for a while.
BTW, he is 6'5" weighs 260lbs, ex college football (thats what ruined his knees) He says no way on earth he is going to get the other one done now LOL.

 

Make sure he does his exercises, and ice, ice, ice after. He will get better. If he doesn't do the exercises he will get scarring inside the knee joint and will have big problems with range of motion, which will affect everything he does, it will also cause long term functional problems and discomfort. Most Dr's in FL use CPMs (Continuous Passive Motion). They are very helpful in pain control and prevention of scarring and DVTs (Blood Clots).

Jamie PTA (Physical Therapist Assistant)

PM if you have any specific questions, I'll help any way I can.

 

Jaime,

Thanks for the info. He is using the CPM since day one I think. I dont know if he will have one at home though. I'll get the dang hoss up though....... I'll just roll a biscuit by him.

 

Typically patients have the CPM for thirty days out of surgery whether it's in rehab or at home or both, thirty days has been my experience.

Jamie