Monday, November 03, 2008

Knee-d to Know


Knee is doing remarkably well, according to my doctor, for ten days post-op. Got good range-of-motion, swelling is way down, no signs of infection. Incisions are clean and healing, and unless I have unforeseen problems, I should be good to go back to vigorous activity in a month or so. Okay to walk the dogs, stretch a bit, and all like that now.

There is some slight superficial nerve damage -- a numb spot lateral to the lateral incision, and some referred pain when I press on the medial incision. (Peripheral nerves in the leg run from medial -- inside -- to lateral (outside) and such neuritis is common after surgery, more so for ACL than meniscus.)

I won't be doing legwork for a while, no kneeling on that side until the nerves regenerate, which can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.

The photos of the injury before and after were most interesting. The edge of the meniscus was tattered, looked kind of like a pair of cut-off blue jean shorts after you run them through the washer and dryer the second or third time. That was all trimmed off nice and clean, and in theory, I should be mechanically sound henceforth.

Well. At least the knee should be ...

2 comments:

  1. FYI. About 10 days - 2 weeks after my shoulder surgery, I got a horrible rash everywhere where (1) the shrink-wrap (2) the steri-strips had resided against my skin. I.e. practically the whole shoulder. Apparently that's not at all uncommon.

    Cold water packs were about the only thing that helped.

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  2. Yep, and fortunately, I think I'll be spared that. Because the first chance I got, I showered and scrubbed all the goop off my skin and then changed the Steri-strips daily. You aren't supposed to do that, but if you are careful, you can. Even so, where the strips were had started to get irritated, so when I replaced them, I angled them slightly.

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