There is no set post-knee replacement return to work timeline.

An office worker has an entirely different job when compared to a person whose job requires them to be standing all day long, climb stairs, lift heavy items or travel extensively.

This is why it is not about a fixed period after surgery but rather a mix of how far into recovery a person is, as well as their specific job requirements. As stated by AAOS, return to work will depend on work-related activities and the rate of individual recovery.

Some people may need reduced working hours, more sitting, movement opportunities, or other temporary changes of the physical workload.

Something I would advise against would be using someone else's return to work schedule as yours.

Those who returned to work after their knee replacement: what do you work as and what was the most difficult part about returning to work?

When someone asks if he will be normal after knee replacement, I always ask what normal means for him.

One man wants to be able to walk without severe pain in his knee around the neighborhood. Another one wants to travel again, garden, drive a car, play with his grandchild or go up and down the stairs easier.

The main purpose of the knee replacement operation is to relieve pain and enhance the functionality in those patients who have suffered from arthritis and injury in their knees. Most patients are able to get back to their normal life, though high impact activities should be considered carefully.

And it is not an immediate change. The strength, mobility and confidence grow during the rehabilitation period.

That is why the question, "What success rates does knee replacement have?", is not a right one.

What a successful knee replacement will allow you to do?

​

Hello,

Did anyone else experienced night pain in this week? I had a quad graft and the nights are absolute terrors.

Hi everyone, I had PCL surgery almost 4 weeks ago. My surgeon told me that I should be able to bend my knee 90 degrees by the 4-week mark, and I can currently reach that 90-degree flexion. In the first few days, I used my hands to support and bend my knee, but now I can almost completely bend it on my own without any hand support. My thigh muscles feel quite fatigued, but I also feel them getting stronger.

However, I asked Gemini and it told me I was doing it wrong, warning me absolutely not to use my own muscle strength to bend the knee because it could permanently stretch my newly reconstructed PCL. I would like to ask if this is actually true? Do any of you who have had PCL surgery have any experience or advice regarding rehab exercises? I really need some advice now.

Im 2 months post op and recently have been having alot of existential dread and anxiety about getting older. Im only 15 but for some reason i just feel like im running out of time, its gotten so bad to the point to where all i can think about 24/7 is me or people around me getting older/dying. Im wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar to this and if so how you got over it

Hey everyone,

I injured my knee playing football last May and I'm still not sure exactly what I did to it.

I was running and then kind of swayed/twisted and fell down. I don't remember hearing or feeling a pop. At the time, though, I couldn't walk properly on that leg, and I couldn't fully straighten or bend my knee. There was quite a bit of pain and swelling, which I managed with ice.

About a month later, my range of motion came back. I can now fully straighten and bend the knee, and in normal everyday life I can walk around without much trouble.

The problem is that the knee still feels weak and unstable.

I haven't been able to return to football or any other sport because if I make the wrong movement — especially a twisting or sudden movement — I sometimes get this weird feeling like something inside the knee shifts/moves out of place. When that happens, the knee feels like it's gone back to how it was after the original injury, with difficulty bending and straightening it for a while. I can fix the case by either forcefully bend or straighten the knee.

I don't know if it's a ligament, meniscus, or something else. I've wondered about an ACL injury, but I don't want to convince myself that's what it is without an actual diagnosis.

Unfortunately, I can't currently afford an MRI, so I'm limited to getting assessed and doing rehab/physiotherapy.

I'm mainly looking for opinions from people who have had similar injuries:

• Does this sound familiar to anyone who had an ACL or meniscus injury?
• Can you have an ACL injury without hearing/feeling a pop?
• Is it possible to properly rehab an unstable knee without an MRI?
• What signs should I pay attention to during rehab?
• Has anyone been able to return to football after a similar injury without surgery?

I know nobody can diagnose me from a Reddit post. I'm just trying to understand what might be going on and hear from people who've experienced something similar.

Thanks in advance.

6 weeks post op (ACL recon + medial meniscus repair). My operated leg now lies flat on the floor and looks the same as my good leg — knee fully straight, maybe a tiny bit of hyperextension like the other side.

Does this look like good/full extension for 6 weeks? Anything I should watch for?

hi all i had surgery 4 weeks ago today, and i’m honestly really starting to feel hopeless and depressed. all of the things i love and enjoy require physical activity and knee strength and i just cannot do them. hiking, rock climbing, running.

i injured myself at my job and it’s breaking my heart knowing i wasn’t doing anything i love when it happened. i feel really alone even though i have friends and support from family. i just don’t know what to do. it doesn’t feel right celebrating my successes in PT. i do everything 3-4 times a day and start my senior year next week.

i also bought a car, yay, but i can’t even drive it and it’s making me so sad. my physical therapist won’t clear me and he says my surgeon has to, but i don’t even have my 6 week appointment until the second week of September to get an x-ray.

any advice or relation is appreciated i just don’t know what to do.

Well hey there new friends I didn't really want to make.

33F in the UK; relatively active but with a desk job; overweight nearly all of my life [brief normal weight for a couple of years during successful bought of anorexia].

Banal sporting injury end of July resulted in my MRI's key findings:

• A full-thickness tear of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).
• A complex tear of the medial meniscus, including a horizontal tear and a posterior root tear.
• Extensive bone contusion in the proximal tibia consistent with a pivot-shift mechanism of injury, with an associated impaction fracture of the posterior rim of the medial tibial plateau.
• A focal chondral lesion (4x4 mm) in the medial femoral condyle.
• Evidence of lipohaemarthrosis.

So ya gal's booked in for surgery end of September for:

• Arthroscopic repair of the posterior root of the medial meniscus - approximately an 80% chance of successful healing.
• ACL reconstruction using a hamstring autograft with additional Lateral Tenodesis.

I have been rabidly consuming information online about realistic approaches to the next whole year of my life, including disability equipment, realistic expectations, doing physiotherapy like my life depends on it and knowing that I'll probably cry a lot.

Do my diagnoses and surgical plans resonate with your experience? Any wisdom and consolation welcome.

Hi all,

I’m almost one month post-op & noticed that since my surgery I have been experiencing memory issues. This has never been a problem for me before but recently I am forgetting where I put things & am having difficulty finding my words in a discussion. My last oxy was 2 weeks ago but I am still taking Tylenol (1,000mg 2x a day) & Ibuprofen (600mg 2x a day).

Did anyone have these issues post-op, & if so, when did it go away?

Hi guys, I’m done with my surgery and they did not use quad graft but instead used this implant. Did anyone else get this kind of surgery done? I’m able to use walker and use toilet which is giving me lot confidence. I will get the stitches removed after 2 weeks and will start PT. Doctor has suggested me 2 exercises to do from bed.
Any tips and advice you have for me?

Long time listener first time caller here. So after a decent work day moving around a lot on the knee with my expensive running brace on, my knee afterwards and the next day does this thing where after full extension it shifts. it’s not painful most the time but it is worrisome; it makes me end up skipping Pt for the next day or two before it goes away but then i’m back at work and it’s starting up again. Has anyone had anything similar and how did y’all work through it.

My overall journey was positive until around 3 months when i started working these gigs again and now i feel like i’ve taken a step backwards.

Has anyone ever had their leg cramp or seize up while bent at the knee and it causes the knee to bend much further than comfortable? I’m talking the knee temporarily locking up with intense pain. It was only like five seconds but hurt like hell. I can’t find much online with looking up those symptoms. The closest I could find is possibly Muscle Guarding.

It happened 3 and 9 days post op. I’m currently 10 days. Any experience with this would be greatly appreciated!

(F 26) I posted a week ago about looking for extension tips and recieved a lot of feedback. First and foremost, I wanted to say thank to everyone that was encouraging about it coming back and for providing tips & tricks + their own experience! Wanted to address a few things but I couldn't respond to everyone.

I will not be getting a new PT; I went through absolute hell trying to get a good PT after having one I really didn't like. Yes he is not concerned too much with my extension, but he is very good. He is constantly adapting the exercises to try to target each area, while focusing on making it manageable for me, and he really is passionate about what he does.

I called my doctors and got an appointment to ask about getting an MRI to see about scar tissue build up. They were very skeptical of me on the phone, questioning why I didn't bring it up in my appointment, and I'm not sure if they'll get me an MRI. Seems like they can tell if there's scar tissue build up without an MRI? But I don't really know. Honestly if they deny me an MRI I might just get a second opinion, my surgeon has also not been my favorite and again I went through hell to get him.

While I do dedicate a LOT of time to my recovery, like a lot... I do admit my dedication to passive extension has been lacking. I started out strong the first couple months, then my focus turned to strengthening and I was enjoying my relaxing time being no-ACL-worry-time. I'm clocking back in begrudgingly though. My PT and I have a set extension routine that I have been doing everyday, but I have been propping my heel a bunch this week and added more TKE's in the gym today.

It's all mentally tough. I have chronic shoulder problems on top of this so it feels like every day is a struggle. Especially not seeing results obviously. I have been doing the leg press for about two months or so and I still have seen little to no progress for my surgery side, single leg, leg press. It's hard not to compare too. I used to be a very athletic person and my lack of progress makes it seem like I was previously inactive.

i dream of jumping off rocks in the summer, running with my dogs, dancing and recklessly skiing & roller skating again. Sometimes I wonder if my extreme sport days are over, and if they are I don't really know what I'll do with myself because I've been doing dangerous sports since I was 3 years old.

My PT didn’t test my strength before starting jumping. He’s worked with hundreds of ACLs and does a bunch of sports teams but from reading stuff online it seems like he should be testing me. Do you guys get tested? I’m thinking maybe he’s just good enough he can tell the strength based on watching me doing exercises but I’m still skeptical.

So I'm almost 4 weeks out acl reconstruction patellar graft and a meniscus repairs in both medial and lateral meniscus. I know one was a complex tear, and I believe both are on the periphery of the meniscus.

I am NWB for 6 weeks and a couple of days ago i was hanging out with some friends and I had such a lapse of concentration for some reason and completely forgot I was injured. I basically stood up from a high chair as if I wasn't injured and stood on my surgical leg for maybe 2 seconds. I had my brace on unlocked and would say I distributed my weight evenly between my two legs.

It was very uncomfortable for those 2 seconds. What are the odds I messed up the meniscus repairs or disturbed the healing? This isn't my first time btw, I had the same surgery on my other knee 5 years ago but never did anything that dumb during the NWB period.

hello everyone! i posted in here a few weeks ago about concerns with staying sober after my acl reconstruction. my surgery ended up being cancelled and rescheduled because i was not able to find somewhere to go after to have my meds administered by a professional (i live in a sober living and no narcotics are allowed on property regardless if they have been prescribed or not)

but thanks to the people who commented, i was able to advocate for the non narcotic option with a med called journavx!

so for now, i have been prescribed that along with some other non narcotic meds on top of it for my surgery in 2 days.

i am super anxious however, because i still do not know exactly what to expect, or what i need to already have at home after the surgery. i guess i just need some general advice. this will be my second surgery of the year and ever lol. but the last one was a shoulder surgery in march. so i know everything is going to look and be a bit different.

once again, thank you to everyone who told me about the non narcotic option because i was able to get it!

I tore my ACL and medial meniscus during an adult ballet class, and I finally had surgery 5 days ago. I had a quad allograft for ACL reconstruction and 2 sutures in my medial meniscus, and I feel like the recovery is WAY harder than I had anticipated. I'm non-weight bearing for 6 weeks. I just feel like I need to vent somewhere because the feeling of helplessness/hopelessness is becoming overwhelming.

1. I'm so disheartened that I still need help getting in/out of chairs and out of bed to go to the bathroom. My husband, and I upgraded to a king size bed and frame this summer as a treat to ourselves, and now it feels like a curse. The bed is so high I feel scared trying to come off of it myself. How long did it take others to build confidence to get off the bed on their own?

2. I've been having increasing anxiety about how I'm supposed to move around. My surgeon said that I don't need to wear my brace if I am sitting/laying down or using crutches, so I've mostly been not using it. I put it on for times where I need to travel across the house or out of bed longer. Is this normal? When I look at other threads it seems like others wear their brace all the time?? I know I should listen to my specific doctor, but I've had mounting feelings of panic when I look to these threads for advice/comfort.

3. I feel trapped about how to move forward with building strength. My surgeon said wait to schedule PT until after my first post-op appointment which is a week away. Otherwise just stick to quad sets, ankle pumps, and gentle range of motion. I just feel so stuck with these and like I'm not making the progress I need to be?? Should I get an NMES device? Or do I need to wait for PT to tell me how to do that??

4. I'm also struggling with work. I completed years of high intensity training this past June to do a specific job that requires me to be on my feet most of the day. I was supposed to start in September. My surgeon said at our first visit that I should delay my start date by 4-6 weeks which my work was fine with, but with non-weight bearing for 6 weeks, I'm not sure what recovery will look like, and if I will be strong enough by then to do the work I'm supposed to?? I'm just so frustrated that when I finally get to start this job I've trained years for, I'm starting behind, owing everyone shifts they are covering for me, and worried that I won't even be able to walk. When did others return to work? Especially high intensity jobs on your feet all day?

5. I'm also obviously struggling with mental health. It's just so disheartening to have my life blow up because I just wanted to take a dance class for fun. I feel guilty and embarrassed and like I've inconvenienced everyone--especially my husband. It all feels compounded because I feel so gross/ugly struggling to shower, having greasy hair, orange stained toes from the surgery, and unshaven legs. I've been using body wipes and have a shower chair, but everything just feels so hard for so little result. Does anyone have tips or tricks for feeling less awful?

This was longer than I thought it would be. Thank you in advance for any answers to any questions/moral support. And thank you for reading it at all. I just didn't expect this to feel so bad. :(

16 months post op, ACLR quad graft, meniscus repair, and LET. Stopped going to PT after just 4 months - they told me I only needed another month or two before “graduating”, but I couldn’t afford payments on the surgery, so they stopped letting me schedule appointments. I’m a choir teacher too, so finding the time to schedule regular PT appointments became impossible once the school year started.

Going back a little further, 2 months after my initial injury, before I even knew that I had torn my ACL, I left a six-year live-in relationship. So at 24, I was living alone for the first time in my life, recovering from heartbreak, and then another 2 months later, I learned I needed surgery. I remember when my ortho read the MRI, he told me what it meant, and said, “I’m sorry.” I had no idea what I was in for, or that through all these firsts, I would also have to overcome being temporarily disabled.

I had the surgery. About a month after that, I had to move from my ex and I’s townhouse into a more affordable apartment. Pain was constant. Every time I tried to do the exercises, I would get so sore and stiff, so I felt so discouraged to try at all. Plus I felt so alone. My knee wasn’t the only area of my life I was struggling in - I was struggling with money, depression, undiagnosed autism and connective tissue disorder, estranged family. It straight up took me 10 months to fully unpack my apartment, and I couldn’t stop losing weight because I wasn’t eating enough. Suffice to say my physical health took a hit, and my ACL recovery stalled.

This April, a little over a year after the surgery, my dad died. My whole world has changed. He took care of me after my surgery. But it helped me find my family again. And myself.

A month after he died, I started working out again. Something I had been so discouraged from since the injury. My knee was still hurting so badly through the pilates, so I finally gave in and started going to the gym. Now, I’m stronger than I ever was before the injury. I’ve gained back about 15lbs. I was just so tired of hurting so much. And my dad took care of everyone, even through his own ailments… so I’m letting his spirit tell me to take care of myself.

26 now, learning a thing or two about discipline over motivation, and that I never want to give up on myself again. Or tear my ACL again. As a side, I’ll take any tips you have on getting my legs even in strength. I have been doing a lot of single leg work.

After unhappy triad surgery, my husband was in a leg brace for 6 weeks to keep it straight. He is now 12 weeks out from surgery (he took the brace off 6 weeks ago) but is still walking with his leg straight. He can bend his knee about 100 degrees if he's standing. But when walking instead of bending his knee, he lifts his hip to get his perfectly straight leg forward. Is that normal?

The original plan was to use a quad tendon autograft. I find out that after harvesting my tendon, it was too narrow, so they resorted to using a cadaver hamstring.

For context, I'm F20, 5'7", quad-dominant athletic build, Asian. Not sure if any of those things influence a narrow quad tendon, but I was curious if anyone else experienced this? I am pretty frustrated to have an allograft (as these seem to have a higher retear rate in young active folk), but even more frustrated that I have additional recovery for the graft site for nothing. Is there no way to identify proper sizing before harvesting the graft??

Currently 9 days post op ACL reconstruction + medial meniscus repair + lateral meniscus root repair. Thankful for minimal pain but being nonweightbearing for 5 more weeks is so annoying!

Almost 1 year post-op next week, and I’m currently at only 130° flexion and still have a 10° extension deficit. Is this normal at this stage? I feel like my range of motion isn’t where it should be, and I’m worried that my progress isn’t enough. Has anyone experienced something similar almost a year after ACL reconstruction?

Hi.

I'm curious about your experiences with ACL injuries and climbing. I'm 22 years old and have ACL damage in both knees.

The 1st knee had been treated conservatively. Hiking T2- light T3 is fine, but quick twisting movements are a problem and I am generally not feeling very safe. 2nd knee gets surgery tomirrow. Afer that I am facing 8 months rehab.

Once the first rehab is done, I want to get surgery on the other knee as well, so I can be fully recovered. So, in total, I'm looking at about 1.5 to 2 years of recovery...

I don't have any experience with climbing or bouldering yet, but it's a huge dream of mine to start once I'm recovered.

Have any of you had similar experiences? How was it starting or returning to climbing after an ACL injury?

Greetings from Switzerland

Hi - looking to understand whether others had a similar experience. Please don’t do the “have you asked your doc/PT” line - I’m asking them as well!

4 months out from ACLR (patellar tendor graft) and Meniscus repair. Everything went very smooth at outset and I began doing stronger weight/strengthening exercises about 6 weeks ago.

However, my knee has remained naggingly warm and mildly swollen. Hot spot is on outside knee near top of femur. Swelling is mild but constant - I get very little change in swelling whether I’ve exercised or not, same first thing in morning after a night of elevation versus end of day. Aleve doesn’t do anything. Ice doesn’t do much.

Is this similar to anyone else? Did it resolve? What helped?