Surgeon Broke Femur Bone after TKR during a manipulation

Becky,
Hi! I had a right TKR 9/08 (10th knee surgery) and am thinking now that I made a big mistake in having had it done. As a result of a tibial fracture in 1973 and a femur fracture in 1994 my right knee was totally bone on bone. I have also been diagnosed as having osteoporosis and am also a polio survivor. The knee hurt prior to surgery but nowhere near as much as it does now. I also had about 110 degrees range of motion prior to surgery and am now stuck at about 90. I had previously had a THR on my right hip in 8/07 because in 9/06 I badly fractured my right hip and a THR was the only way to get the worst fracture to heal. I have been miserable ever since having the TKR and I'm sure that having had the THR is just making matters worse. Between all of this I was on crutches for just about 2 1/2 years and finally started to use a cane in January. I still get really bad pains throughout the entire knee, burning, aching, stabbing (you name it) and the surgeon from HSS keeps telling me that the implant is perfectly positioned. He does believe that I now have a condition called Pes Bursitis and gave me a cortisone shot when I saw him a couple of weeks ago. The pain for several days following the injection was unbearable (even with taking oxycodone which I have been on since the initial hip fracture - I can't take NSAIDS because of GI problems). Now the pains are just a little higher than prior to the injection but I had gotten no relief at all from the cortisone. I got concerned and called the doctor's office and am still waiting for him to get back to me. Have you ever heard of anyone else who developed this condition post TKR?

Best Wishes,
Roberta

Hello Roberta,
I was around 10 weeks out and also stuck a 80 degrees rom. I will say that it was a set back and I am still fighting pain that it caused and that was three weeks ago!! That being said I went from 80 degrees of Rom to 115 when pushed. To me it was a success! And I would do it again with out a doubt! Roberta depending on where you are in your life and what you would like to do in the future should depend on what your decision would be. It was worth it to me because I am 45 and have a job that requires a lot of movment in and out of small places so for me it was a no brainer it had to happen. I don't know your situation and don't want to tell you what to do but in my book if you have to tolerate more pain and it brings you good movment it's worth it! Good luck and let me know what you decide.

Ralph

Schoust,
I had a TKR on 9/18/08 and can currently flex my knee by myself between 80-85 degrees. The therapist can push it to 90. She said that she feels that I should be able to get more ROM back but I am getting concerned because it seems to be more or less stuck at this point. Also the pain is still quite unbearable and the surgeon just upped my dosage of Percoset so that I can withstand the therapy which is pretty brutal. My range of motion was about 110 degrees prior to the surgery and I was hoping to get at least that back. At what point did your surgeon decide that you had to have a manipulation?

Roberta

My dear Becky, I agree with you 100%.
I am one of those that didnt turn out so good.
I am still struggling. I just keep doing the best I can
It it has been 2 1/2 yrs for me and I hoped things would get better.
I still have chronic pain and will never be where I should be.
I just keep plugging along and hopefully I can help others on the
forum here. You cannot judge everyone by me.

Everyone is different and heals different....I come here to find out
all I can. Just some little tid bit might help me too.
Most everyone does fine.

GOOD LUCK everyone and keep doing those exercises.

Vlc Vicki

Dear Gamma,
I just re-read your story. You have given me some information that is very important.
My knee is swelling more and more and I kept telling my doc something was wrong, and i would only get..."your x-rays are fine"
I'm gonna give mine a couple more weeks, since my last sugery was only on the 22 of sept of this year.
If it continues to keep swelling and losing my range of motion, I'm not gonna sit back this time.
I gonna do what it takes to find somebody to realize this is not normal.


Thank you so much for your story,

sincerely,
skye

Hi Scorvino,

If I had that flexion, I would be jumping up and down with joy.
Im real happy for you.
Your story sounds like a great success.

Thats the thing. No one knows how their own body will react.

I'm so happy for you!


skye

I must apologive for my typing . I accidentally hit the enter button before spell checking - oops. However what I wanted to share the most is how happy I am with todays appt with my surgeon- flex is now between 115 and 121 on both knees , and the Dr says I am where I need to be, will continue to get more flex, stressed the importance of listening to my knees and when they are warm- rest a bit- continue to work on strengthening quads, try water exercise, keep on biking daily and look forward to many more years of pain free knees. I guess it was all worth it in the end but what a journey.

Hi there. his is Shelley again, 5 ms out from bilateral tkr. I have been reading the postings but not replied much. My heart goes out to Skye- what a horrible thing to happen. I really plateued at 3-4 ms and feared a mnaipulation . However, the research I have done around manipulations seems to suggest that most manipualtions are done withut opening up the knee etc. and the results are usually quite good. I too would be angry about the poor outcome Skye had. However, internal manipulation / cleanup of adhesions etc aren't necessarily better as they are oftne done fro diffenet reasons and in fact the outcome isn't always that effective as the adhesions regrow. I would encourage those of you who are having sucha a procedure done to do you research but make mos of all find someone you trust and then stay positive. There are so many factors that can affect the end outcome. I am a nurse and see this in my work . A lot of information I ahve seen on this forum have really hit home- the folks who tlked about panic attacks- what is that allabout? - the meds???- the pain???? I have spoken to a few folks in person who have admitted ot this and I am sure it explains a lot of my paranoid bhaviour in the first couple of months but no one told me about it before hand. Other stories that hit home were thos about meds / nausea and pain control. I couldn't handle morphine /deritvatives, or gabapentin ( for nerve pain) . My problem was nursing staff that could not individualize my pain management and insisted ( to the point of practically forcing me to take what the wanted me to despite my protests) as they were the med on their "protocol". This meant that I only had plain tylenol becasue I couldn't take percodan or hydromorphone and a host of antiemetics and basically had no pain control till I got home and my sister stuffed T3's into me till I became human again. This really affected my recovery time and played games with my emotions. There is so much i didn't know until I had the surgery but it is this forum that helps me understand my experience and not feel so alone. My poor husband must have thought he married a lunatic s i would wake up crying and yelping sometimes in the moddleof the night as i would have tried to change position.

Wow Now I'm getting nervouse! I am scheduled for this exact procedure tomorow and I do not no what I should do? I mean I have already said to my Os that I have this concern and told him that if there is a chance that I would not do this! He told me not to worry that everything would be fine so I have been calm and cool in anticipation of this. Now after reading this Bomb I simply don't know what to do?????????

Hi all,
I just found this board today as I was searching for some information on the CPM machine. CONTINUOUS PASSIVE MOTION.
I'm not new to this machine for my knee.
My nightmare began on 9/11/2006.
I had to have a TRK replacement that day. I'm in my 40's, and when I was 22 I was in a car accident, and hurt my knee pretty bad. However, I lived a normal life without pain until the Beginning of 2006. In August, I finally went to the "same" surgeon that operated on my knee 20 something years ago, and he told me I was "bone on bone" and said I had to have a total Knee Replacement.
On the day of surgery,..everything went well. I started PT right and it was Brutal. The pain was so intense, and after 2 months, I reached 95 degrees with little pain. My surgeon wasnt satisfied with that number and said I "needed" a manipulation. (Surgeon takes his own hands while I'm asleep under general anthesia), and tries to break up scar tissue.) During my 30 minute ouptatient surgery, my surgeon went way to far, and broke my femur bone completely in half at the largest part. He had to go out and tell my family memeber(s) that was there that"...I fractured her femur bone".
I had to have another major surgery to put a plate and screws in my leg due to the break. He broke it on November 13, 2006. almost 3 months after my knee replacement.
Since I had to let the largest bone in our bodies heal, (which took a year)...my range of motion kept going down. It dropped down to 20 degrees and locking up.
The pain was so intense that my Primary Care Physician had to manage my pain, and I had to take lots of narcotics for a solid year.
Well 2 weeks ago,.....another surgeon with another group did a total knee revision, to fix and clean up the mess that the first surgeon made. The only way this surgeon would touch me was because he happened to be my sisters best friends husband. No other surgeon would, not in my large city anyway, when the news spread about the doctor breaking my femur bone and admitting that he went to far.
So right now, I'm starting PT all over again, and its brutal. I'm only at 70 degrees at my best, and going through all the swelling,..etc that all of you are experiencing.
My point to this post,...is PLEASE,..PLEASE NEVER LET A SURGEON DO A MANIPULATION ON YOUR KNEE AFTER A TKR, WITHOUT ASKING QUESTIONS AND GETTING A SECOND OPINION. MY NEW SURGEON SAID THAT MY BAD SURGEON SHOULD HAVE DONE AN "INTERNAL" MANIPULATION INSTEAD OF AN "EXTERNAL MANIPULATION. That means my leg didnt have to break. He could have done what my new surgeon did, and cleaned out all the scar tissue from the inside out, by going back through the same scar. Our femur bone becomes weaker when we have a replacement added.
I will be lucky if I get to 90-95 degrees for the rest of my life.
I'm in very intense therapy 4 days a week, and its so brutal as most of you know. I'm also on massive amounts of narcotics(again) due to the extreme pain during therapy and out.
Im sorry this was so long. I wanted to share this so maybe I could help someone to not become a victim of a broken femur bone, that my first surgeon did as he tried to play God. His exact words were" I had your knee to 120 and I was going to 125" "We heard the break, I put your leg down, we x-rayed it and I realized I fractured your femur bone"

Please ask me any questions, as I would love to help anyone needed answers. I can also learn alot myself.

Thanks,
skye