Hard Time

I

IGTamayo

Cathlete
Hi all,

I'm having such a hard time getting back the full use of my entire right leg. I had knee surgery on October 3 and although my docter assures me that everything went well and I will return to my normal activities, physically I don't feel it happening. I try very hard twice a day to do the exercises prescribed by my physical therapit. It's very painful to say the least. I had a session yesterday for two hours. He told me that I have very good range of motion in my knee, but the surrounding muscles are very very weak and lazy. I trust that someone in our forum can enlighten me and tell me what I'm doing wrong. Before the surgery I was working out 4-5 days a week, eating as clean as possible not to mention that I've lost about 60 pounds in the process of a year. Now I feel that I will never get back to where I was before the surgery. I'm in constant pain and attempted to return to my job (this past Monday for half a day) and now I can barely walk. I know I sound like I'm having my own personal pity party and for this I apologize. This is all new and scary for me. Any light you can shed of my situation will be greatly appreciated.

Take care all,

Iris
 
Hi Iris; I broke my right hip 3 years ego, at that time I was thinking that nothing it would be the same with me, I coudn't walk by myself for 6 weeks. But now I look back and think,It was hard but it make me strong.Before my surgery I couldn't finish the cardio part of Body max, now I can do it completly. Its only matter of time.
Just take it easy and think that life is beatiful.
 
Hello Iris,
I don't have any light to shed on your situation, but I just want to encourage you to give your body time to heal. Do what you can when you can communicating your progress or lack thereof to your doctor. Your surgery wasn't that long ago so allow your body time to fully heal and recover. I'm sure it is very frustrating to think about where you were, but you will get back to your old workout schedule EVENTUALLY. Take it slow. You will probably be suprised at how fast you get your "groove" back. Good luck!
Angela

Have you told your doctor that your are in constant pain?
 
Hi Iris!

How nice to "see" you!!! I am so sorry to hear you are having a rough time. I remeber when I broke my itsy-bitsy lil' toe summer before last. I thought I would go into a terrible state of depression not being able to do my normal stuff and here I am talking about a lil' toe! :p Do talk to your Dr. and let him know you are in constant pain even if it's just thru a phone call. I'm sure he'll be able to precribe something to make you a bit more comfy. Don't stress about what you did (how far you came) BEFORE the surgery. I know it doesn't seem at all possible that you will bounce back, but you WILL. Your desire will get you there. For now, just do what the doc wants you to do, take it one day at a time and come here often if you need a shoulder. My heart feels for you. I am the BIGGEST wimp when it comes to pain so I hope and pray that yours will subside soon. Keep us posted. HUGS & PRAYERS!

Your-Friend-In-Fitness, DebbieH http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/wavey.gif[/img] If You Get The Choice To Sit It Out Or Dance...I Hope You DANCE!!!
 
Also...

When I could do no impact, lunges, cardio or anything that required pressure on my lil' toe, I substituted and did extra AB/Core work, LOTS of lying down work, all upper body and I also was able to use my B&TR because it involved pushing thru my heels NO TOES! :) I guess what I am trying to say is that it will be a good thing to shake up what you usually do. Francine helped set up a few things for me & I am sure she will help you with a plan when she is able to return here. (She is very tied up with lots of fitness stuff right now. )I just kept at WHAT I COULD DO and I did not lose hardly any ground and bounced right back as soon as I was healed. Hang in there!!!
Your-Friend-In-Fitness, DebbieH http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/wavey.gif[/img] If You Get The Choice To Sit It Out Or Dance...I Hope You DANCE!!!
 
Hi Iris,
I can't speak to a knee surgery, but I had foot surgery that put me out of commission for about 4 months. I was so concerned about getting back to exercising that I was careful to do "exactly" what my doctor and my PT told me to do. As it was, I eased back into it with walking and other low impact activities, but I believe because I behaved and did what they said I recovered as quickly as possible. Also I continued to have some pain for a quite a while after but eventually it subsided. I do have a screw in my foot, but I can do whatever I want, run, high impact, you name it!

Please don't despair, it will take time. But let me tell you this, I was able to recover back to my previous fitness level in a third of the time it took to get there originally - your body will remember!

Iris, this is just a temporary set back. You will recover! You'll come out of this stronger and better for having gone through it!
 
Yes, exactly what Jo said...your body/muscles DO have memory and you won't have to work as hard as originally. They will say, "Oh boy, she's at it again!" Stay strong!
Your-Friend-In-Fitness, DebbieH http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/wavey.gif[/img] If You Get The Choice To Sit It Out Or Dance...I Hope You DANCE!!!
 
Iris,
One more thing, after reading Debbie's post, it reminded me. When I was unable to walk, I did do sit-ups and other toning exercises that I could do sitting down and not put pressure on my foot. Like all kinds of upper body work - bicep curls, shoulder work, triceps. My husband rigged a broomstick over a couple of chairs so I could do pull-ups from a lying down position. There's always something you can do.

Take care of yourself!:7 :7
 
Iris, you poor thing!!

I'm so sorry you're having such a hard time. :( I do think that Jo and Debbie and gogigi are exactly right -- you are used to an activity level that we elite Cathe-ites;-) consider normal but the rest of the world would consider very taxing and strenuous, and your body's been through a big trauma. I, too, say call your doctor and tell him how much pain you're in -- no sense in suffering with that, girl! He should be able to prescribe something to ease the pain. And then I hope you'll try to enjoy this "down" time -- watch some great movies, read, catch up on your magazines, write some real letters to people. When you feel up to it, sit CAREFULLY down on your board and try a little upper body seated work, or lie down and try some abs work.

You'll come through this with flying colors and before we know it you'll be bragging about how high you're jumping on your flying jacks -- and we'll all be like, "Oh, there goes Iris again jus' braggin' on her own self!!" :)

We love ya -- throwing some big ol' hugs at you!!!!

http://e4u.deltait.com.au/sport/sport23.gif Kathy S.
 
Hi, I had knee surgery on both of my knees at the same time. I had a lateral release and a scope (simple , easy surgery they said). They told me it would be a 3 week recovery. So I thought I'd be close to doing my old routine of working out by then. Boy was I wrong! All I could do for a few months after the surgery was ride my bike for short distances. Then come home and put ice on my knees. It's took at least 6-8 months before I could do my workouts (squats, lunges etc.) with any real excurtion. I still babysit my knees, but they are not painful anymore and are better than before. I just wish I'd had talked to someone who had knee surgery that WORKED OUT. I think if you were just the average person that didn't workout you would not even notice that it was a longer recovery than you expected. I know just how you feel. It's very discourageing and depressing, you think all that hard work will be destroyed and you'll never be the same.
It takes time....alot of time. But you will be back to normal or better soon enough. I recommend riding a bike for your legs for awhile. You don't want to slow down the healing process by doing your old routine just yet. I'm also taking glucosamine which I think helped with the pain of easeing into my workouts. I also got a knee strap (one of those thin ones you can get at a store like rite aid). That helped keep my knees stable while doing squats and lunges. (Plie squat took the longest for me to do with out pain.)
I hope this helps and I wish you a speedy recovery.

:)

Sorry forgot to add that floorwork for legs was a big life saver for me. I also had to return to work after a week and could only sit and work for a couple of hours. My knees swole up like balloons. I know the pain. I hope you have a job where you can at least sit down.
 
Hi, Iris--

I'm sorry to hear you're having a hard time. I had arthroscopic surgery on my right knee about 5 years ago. They made it sound like it was going to be no big deal, I'd be back to my regular routine in no time. Well, it took a very long time, probably close to a year, before I felt normal again. And it is discouraging how quickly your muscles seem to disappear. I've always had pretty big, strong quads, but once I hurt my knee, the quad muscle in that leg seemed to suddenly disappear! It was very strange and discouraging. And I hate to say this, but even after all this time, the quad on my right leg is still a little smaller/weaker than my left.

Try to be patient. Stick with the PT; that really helped me a lot. You will get better; it just takes so much more time than you think it will. Try not to do too much too soon; you definitely don't want to have to deal with a reinjury. Hang in there and keep us posted.

And Sunnyside, I'm interested in the success you've had with using a knee strap to help with squats and lunges. Do you know that even now, 5 years after surgery, those are still two moves that I cannot do. Every once in a while I'll try them again, and my knee is always really sore the next day, especially after the squats. It's discouraging, because they are such effective exercises. Maybe I'll give it one more try with one of those straps to see if that might help.
 
Hi Mariep, I found that using the stap really helped in my doing squats and lunges. It feels like it holds the muscles around the knee in and keeps the knee cap straight, if that makes sence. I do not go very deep doing these by the way. More like a half squat and half lunge. Squats were harder for me too. I still don't squat very deep. I found that the static lunges were the best for me. It is always the back knee that hurts the most with lunges. So, I'm sure I don't go as deep as most people. But it works for me and my legs are now pretty strong. My doctor told me never to do squats again. But I still do them(I'm hard headed)and they don't seem to bother me if I have good form and don't squat to deep. I usually only do one standing leg work a week just to be safe. When I really want to work my legs I go mountain biking or do floor work. Hi/lo hurts my knees some. I still have to be careful.
 
That's so funny; my dr. told me the same thing--his exact words were, "don't do squats--never do squats!" But I'm definitely hard-headed like you and keep trying them every now and then. They're so effective! What I've been substituting for the last couple of years are leg raises with really heavy ankle weights (similar to a leg lift machine). These are great for the quads, but do nothing for the glutes and hams. That's the best thing about squats--they work everything! I find the static lunges better, too, but even they bother me if I do too many. That's a great idea of only doing one standing leg workout per week; I never thought of that! Maybe I can try doing one standing and then one all floor work (like a combo of the floor work from PS SL&A and PLB). This is encouraging! Maybe I'll be able to tackle some squats yet!

Thanks for the tips!:)

Marie
 
Cool! I'm excited to try this! It's so funny how sometimes you just never think of things, and then someone suggests it and it's like, oh, how come I never thought of that!:D

Thanks again for the tips!

Marie
 
RE: Hard Time - UPDATE

Hello my dears... it was so good to read all of your responses. I feel so very blessed and for this I say to you all - THANK YOU!!!
Saw my doctor - stitches were removed - what a relief! He did tell me that my situation is normal. He also said that I will be just fine - be patient he says. My range of motion went from 90 degrees before the surgery with pain to 120 degrees with no pain today - Yippeee! On the other side of the coin he was very honest in saying that this surgery bought me some time - could be six weeks, six months or even six years, but that a total knee replacement is definately written in my future. This scares the heck out of me - something to think about.

Again many thanks for all of your support and kind words of encouragement - will keep you posted.

Big kiss and hugs to you all!!

Take care,
Iris
 
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