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:

Tiel Aisha Ansari said...

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.

Steve Perry said...

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.