Breaking down my Total Knee Replacement at 45

Ali: Hey mamas, welcome back. I am doing a little mini episode today based on the feedback that I got from my last episode about the emotional recoveries from the three surgeries that I had by the time I was 45. I had a lot of people asking me about my total knee replacement. So let's do a little deeper dive into that. some of this will be a little bit redundant, but hopefully I touch on other things that I missed in the first one. Because I guess there's a lot of you out there who are looking at a possible total knee replacement. And I'll probably be putting it off as I did. because it's scary and it's a lot and the fair and the unknown and all that. So let's go into it. I what why did I need a total knee replacement at 45? I get that question a lot. It's a layered it's layered, but I've I've played basketball my up until I graduated from college. So I played I got a full scholarship to play basketball. my knees were never great. I'm six feet tall. I was just I played volleyball. I played basketball. I was on the track teams or on the javelin shop put. I also played golf. I was just constantly going. And you know I would go to the doctors regularly, I would say, you know, for an 18 year old kid 14, 15, 16, all the way up until I finished college because my knees hurt. and it was usually this muscle's too strong and this one's too weak, and like just balancing out things like that. But they were never really great. So I think a lot of inflammation and a lot of pain over the years. and then when I graduated from college, I started running. I just needed I could you can't people underestimate what athletes go through. You can't just work out constantly and be competitive and competing. At a high level, and then one day you don't. It's not only really hard on your body because you're so used to being active, but it's mentally it it's it's a struggle. How am I not? Who am I now? So my brother at the time was a year ahead of me. Actually, we graduated college the same year because he did a year prep school between high school and college. So we graduated and he started running with a bunch of his buddies. The running culture in New England in the two thousands was pretty fun. There was lots of every weekend there was a different road race. there was always a beer tent afterwards. So you know, we were young and we'd train for these different races and then have some fun and go home and sleep it off. Yeah, it was just like a fun thing to do on a Saturday or Sunday morning and then you have a couple beers afterwards and then you go home and take a shower and do whatever you had to do for the rest of the day. So It was like a culture thing and this is before I was gluten free. so I knew that gluten was not a friend of mine at this time, but I was doing things that I did that ignored that. So anyways, then I did competitive running. I wouldn't get out of bed for a five K. That was not that was kind of a waste of my time. So I was only doing ten K's, half marathons and marathons. I only did two marathons. But I t I was running a lot and I was working on my feet. I was in grad school right after college. So I had two different jobs. I was working in a restaurant. I was working in a spa. I was student teaching for a semester of that. And I was just on my feet all day long and all night long. so not little A little bit of not a lot of rest and not a lot of recovery time. I wasn't eating properly, blah blah blah blah blah. So there was a lot of inflammation there. Then after doing that for way too long and not eating and resting and all that, that's when I diagnosed with rheumatoid at twenty-nine. So I'm forty five when I have my knee surgery. So with twenty nine I have some years of inflammation. As I mentioned before, I tried to do holistic treatments only for several years. That was a mistake in that there was some damage that was done, but it was not a mistake because mentally I needed to prove to myself that I could or couldn't do it. Heal myself. so that's a long way around of saying there is not just one thing that contributed to my knees. I just do think I had bad knees to begin with, being tall and and I always struggled with my weight. So That was always a thing. Even when I was playing basketball in college, I was not a toothpick by any stretch. You would think someone who's working out two to three times a day and playing as much basketball as I was playing, I would have been smaller than I was, but I I wasn't. So at carrying extra weight, running the smallest I ever was was when I ran the marathons. And yeah. So that was that. Those all contri those all contributing factors, just to the shit luck of the draw that I have bad knees and then add and everything else that I was doing it didn't help. Had I not played basketball, had I not run, had I not run my body to the ground, maybe I wouldn't be here. But does that's neither here nor there. So I have known for quite some time that my knees are junk. And as I said in the last episode, my doctors just wanted me to push the can down kick the can down the path as far as far as I could because knee replacements only last so long. And when you're in your 30s and you're talking to your doctors about possible knee replacements, you know, that conversation came up pretty early. They were like, you don't need it now, but you know, you're definitely gonna need it at some point. So at 44, that's when the pain was it's it's funny because the pain would come and go and my knees would swell and be gone and I would have trouble up and down the stairs, things like that. But at 44, outside of my knee getting stuck and being stiff a lot and like it didn't it wasn't this aching pain all day long. Which with rheumatoid arthritis or whatever, you know, painful disease that you might have, that's kind of the baseline. Like we're I'm used to pain all day long. Some some days, thankfully that's not the case, but There's been years that I've been in pain all day long. So I'm thinking in my head, like, I can kick this down the can. I can kick this can down the road for another couple of years at 44, I'm thinking this, because it there are days that it doesn't hurt all day long. But as I said, I it was getting stuck when I was driving and it was becoming a safety hazard for myself, my kids, any passengers and people just on the road. I mean, if if it was stuck and I couldn't hit the brake. Thankfully that never happened because I'm sensible enough to know that okay, I can ignore my own body for as long as I want, that as long as it only affects me, but now it might affect somebody else. Okay, now I have to now I have to get this looked at. That's a crazy mentality, but that's literally what it what it came down to. So when I went to the knee surgeon, like it I you know, I I met with the PA, he looked at it, he they did the x-rays. He looked at it. The doctor came in, the surgeon came in the last 10 minutes. There was never a question. In fact, they were like, You both your knees need to be done. Your right is severely worse than your left, but your left meets the criteria at the same time. doing them at the same time was not an option. It wasn't he didn't bring it up, I didn't bring it up, I didn't want to do them at the same time. I don't know how people do that, to be quite honest, because the recovery from one. I mean, if I didn't have one good knee, I don't know I don't know how I don't know how people do it. So actually, I my surgeon was excellent, but he did not have any bedside manner. So that to me is fine. I don't really care. I don't need my I this gonna sound like I'm being I'm not being sensitive to other people, but like I don't need my hand held at the doctor anymore. I've been th through this enough to like, okay, just give it to me and I'll figure it out. That's kind of where I am. I you know, so I I knew I needed my knee replaced. I knew it was gonna happen, it was gonna probably happen soon. He came in, I talked to him for five minutes, I never saw him again. To this day, I've never seen him again. I don't even know what he looks like, to be honest. he came in, he was trying to like He was kind of selling it to me, you know, it's gonna be good, it's gonna be good. And I'm like, look, you don't need to sell me. I I know what I'm in for. He's like, I'm not trying to sell you. I'm like I'm like I don't need to sell anybody anything. Basically, you know. I I don't like to talk bad about doctors and sometimes I don't think there are there are some out there that aren't good. He is the number one surgeon in this area. Well, at least in the top we'll say the top three. and the That surgery was a major success. I had no issues. My scar is beautiful. I rehabbed quickly. It was all great, but I think I offended him when I was like, you don't need to sell me. Like, I'm here. Like, and he basically walked out and I literally never saw him again. So I showed up the day of surgery and did not see him. He didn't talk to me after the surgery. He didn't come into the recovery room. I had follow-up appointments. I never saw him. So Take it what you will with that. I know a lot of people have a total knee replacement and they c they spend days in the hospital recovering. They kick me out hours later. I mean I I did have the first one of the day, and they told me if I had one later in the day, I would have to stay the night. So I was so thankful that I had one early in the day. But I gotta tell ya, the next morning I was my mother's a nurse and she's like, You probably should have stayed in the hospital. This is really bad. Because they that's another thing I'll get to in a minute. so that was that. And then it was a quick schedule. I mean, he had an opening. They originally booked me for one date in September, September 25th. And then they called me a couple weeks after that and said, we can do it August, whatever. And I s we had somebody cancel and we could do it in August. But I had had my mother flying down here. I could like my husband had already taken time off from work. Like it just we couldn't change the date. So we re-rolled with the twenty-fifth. September. I again was the first person in there. I don't remember too much. I remember the intake. I remember them like I guess giving me like the med I don't I don't even really remember too much about it, to be honest. I woke up and I felt pain when I woke up. So they gave me more medication. They actually gave me, I think They gave me, I forget. I'm so bad at this, but they they gave me whatever medications. I woke up, they they asked me, Do I feel anything? I said, Yeah, my knee hurts. And then they gave me more. And then like 20 minutes later, they're like, Can you still feel it? I'm like, Well, it feels better, but I can still feel it. So then they gave me more. one thing is my doctor, he basically in the 10 minutes that I told saw, or no, not even that, the the nurse practitioner, I saw him a lot. He was awesome. And He said, Look, there's a new technology that Dr. So and so wants to try. it's basically like an implant of medication in the knee and it dissolves over time and hopefully you won't have to take as much whatever. I'm like, okay, I didn't even really have a choice and didn't really know too much about it. so we went he did that. I think my surgery was on a Thursday. I don't remember. But so then I woke up. They take me to the recovery room. My husband was there. we were fighting our sandwiches, stupid stuff. and then next thing I know, physical therapy's in there. and at the same time, I had a stress fracture in my other foot. So I have a boot on my left foot and a total knee replacement on my right, and they're telling me I have to get up and walk. it's probably three, two or three in the afternoon now. And I've just they've literally cut my bones, taken out. a a major joint and put a new one and sewed me back up. So I walked really quickly. I mean it didn't walk very far, but they make sure you can go up and down a step in case you have to get in your house. You can't leave until you do all these things. And then at like six o'clock that the hospital was three miles from my house. So I was home by six thirty, seven o'clock at the latest. And I sat in the chair and I felt good when I got home, I'm not gonna lie. The drugs were drugging I had no pain. I was talking to people. It was great. The next day, whatever that treatment was that they put inside me did not work at all. I woke up in so much pain. And then we had this tornado. This is crazy. We had tornado warnings in the area, which we don't have often, but we do have from time to time. And actually they it was kind of a take shelter now because there was one that touched down and like two miles from here. in another neighborhood where a lot of our friends live. Now they were small and they weren't anything major, but my kids were freaking out. My mother was freaking out because she doesn't she's not lives in she lives in the Boston area. And I was the kids are like hiding under the staircase with my husband, which is small, and my mother, which is small. There's no way I could get in there. So they shoved me into like the tiny hallway bathroom and I sat there for like an hour. Now after the surgery the bruising like they tourniquet your leg obviously And I just had this insane bruising. And like sitting on anything that wasn't soft was very difficult. Like using the bathroom is very, very difficult. The toilet seat was so uncomfortable. And so we did get things to help and all that. But I just didn't expect that. That was something I had no idea. And not everybody bruises like that, but it was very I was severe severely bruised. It was ugly. And sitting in that bathroom really set me back pain wise. Maybe it wasn't an hour, maybe it was twenty five minutes. It it didn't matter. It was twenty five minutes too long. And then I had to call the doctor and basically beg for stronger medications. And we got the prescription and then the pharmacy did not want to fill it because they thought it was too much. It it was a I whatever, painkill, you know, like an what do you call those drugs that everyone gets hooked on in the two thousands? oxies or you know, whatever those drugs are. but I needed them and I don't like taking medications, but I was it was the most pain I've ever been in. I I did childbirth unmedicated and my daughter we she had shoulder dystosure, so her shoulder was stuck on my pelvis, and that was pretty uncomfortable. The way they take babies out like that is not good. And I was unmedicated for that and I would do that all over again before I did you know I I wouldn't I think because of that medication, that insert medication that they gave me just did not work and I was in so much pain. The nerve block was gone. I was in so much pain. my kids, that's one thing I didn't mention. It was really hard on my family to see me in that much pain. when I do it again, this story will be told to whatever surgeon is doing it to me so that I go home with the proper medication. And I don't care if that I know they do it 'cause they don't want people to get addicted to these drugs. And I have a family member that has struggled very long time with this kind of thing. So I completely understand. I guess there's like a pump that you can have that's attached to you that you know, you can get the medication that way. And then if there's no it it like only allows you so much at so many times. And then there's no one can steal it and take it. So I will be looking into something along those lines when I do the next one because I just feel like you know I was kind of a guinea pig. It was didn't work for me. Maybe other people have had it and it worked great. I don't know, but it was awful and I d did not like it. And then we struggled with the pharmacy and my husband had to get really aggressive and be like, she just had her neat completely replaced and she's dying. She's in so much pain. And they finally gave it to me. But they only give you like six or seven pills. And then you gotta go back and get more. which I understand they don't want people abusing it, fine, but it's just a lot of back and forth to the doctors calling, figuring that out. one thing I will say if you are contemplating a total knee replacement and you go for it, wait, set an alarm and have somebody give you meds all night for the first like three or four nights to get you through. Cause had I not done that, I would have been even worse. You can't like once you get you can't get behind on the pain meds. If the pain gets too far ahead, it's really hard to catch you back up, which is what happened to me because of that medication did not work at all. so That's why it was super painful. But you know, they do like cut two major bones in your body and rip out a joint. It's not, it's not gonna not be painful. and I swore up and down the river I would never do the other one for probably three weeks because it's frustrating. So once I got past the initial week, you know, you you're using a walker in and out of the bathrooms. my daughter, who is a slob, refused to get to to pick up her stuff. So my mother's yelling at her the whole time, your mother's gonna fall and kill herself. And I, you know, just watching my mother do everything for me and my husband do doing extra stuff on top of everything else he doing, missing the kids' sports, missing things at the school, you know, when it's your right knee you can't drive for a long time. You have to be have like good range of motion, good movement. You have to be able to react. You can't be on any medications. Thankfully, I didn't take medications for very long, but my knee, you know, it wasn't a medication reason that I couldn't drive. It was my knee wasn't ready for it. So that when it's your right knee, it is more limiting because you cannot drive until the doctors basically give you the okay. So walker, you can't even get yourself a glass of water and go and sit back down unless you have like a basket in your thing. So And ha constantly having to ask. My I kept asking my mother for water. I think anesthesia dehydrates me, it makes me depressed. I you know, so I was drinking so she's I think there's something wrong with you. Like this is can't be right that you have drinking this much water. I'm like, I'm so thirsty. Plus, you know you you're dehydrated when you have the surgery because you can't drink, eat or drink anything. And I'm always sipping on water. So and then the nurse comes in literally the next morning. Or the physical therapist, you have a nurse in physical therapy, they come back in and they s get you going and you got a list of exercises to do and you better do because I saw people in physical therapy who did not do them, who did not do the range of motion things, this all of the above. And they had no range of motion and they were miserable and they were in there was one guy who has been in rehab for a year because He he just didn't do what he was supposed to do. I know somebody else who had to rehab his surgery had to have another surgery because he didn't do the rehab. When I talk to him, I'm like, I'm getting my knee done next week. And he's like, Well, just do the rehab. I didn't do it, and now I have to have another surgery. So that's not what you want to do. You gotta fight through it and do it, and it's painful. but no pain, no gain. So The in home therapy, you know, it was good to have somebody come in and take a look at your sutures and take the bandages off and do all that and then give you the therapy. but it it guys, it's a lot. There's no way around it. You can't just take a major joint out of your body and although I hear hips aren't that bad, but for knees are pretty bad. and I would do it again. I will do it again, but I'll be more prepared. And you know, maybe I can work it better into my schedule. I just felt it's prime soccer season and then you're walk then you know, you're forty five and you show up at the soccer field with a walker. And the people you know on the team, they know what happened, but you know, it's not a great feeling. And you know, people are constantly trying to help. Let me carry that for you, let me do that. It's just so sweet. It's just not something at forty five I'm used to. And you know, it's very humbling. Very, very, very humbling. it was quite some time before I could stand at the stove and cook a meal. There was a lot of like I did too much and now I have to rest for like two days. just recovering from a major surgery, that could be the case, but there there was a lot of that. One of the biggest things I will say is my insurance covered this ice machine and it wasn't one where you had to fill it with water and it made ice or or fill it with ice and it just circulated. I wore that thing twenty-four-seven for any time I was home and not at physical therapy or standing up and doing my thing, I had that on and it it sick circulated. It would be I cold for 20 minutes, turn off for 20 minutes, cold for 20 minutes, turn off all night long. I never took it off. I had ice on my knee. And I think that really helped with the swelling. It helped with the pain. I was freezing a lot, but You know, if you if you are considering it and you can get that machine, I think I would pay for it, to be quite honest. I I'd rent because you can rent them from places if your insurance doesn't cover it. Thankfully mine did. but I would rent it more so than the ones that somebody needs to tend to it and put them water or the ice in it or whatever. That one, it's too much work. This one to there's like a little jar of refrigerant or something. I don't know what the heck it is. And you might have to put a little bit in depending on. whatever, but yeah, I think I had that for three weeks and then I was really sad when it left 'cause I really wanted it. And then my physical therapist basically gave me a Well, a recommendation of what kind of ice pack to get. It's one of those like blue soft. I can put it in the show notes. and no, that's our favorite ice pack because it molds. Like when you have a major surgery with an incision like that, this one, this particular ice pack molds to it, to your body, and it's not heavy. You just kind of put it in a pillow sheet. And yeah, that was perfect. So we enjoyed that one. And then I did physical therapy from September to Thanksgiving. And I went away the week of Thanksgiving and I never went back to physical therapy after that. So that was a short amount of time. Like I said, there were people in there for a year. What you put in is what you get out. thankfully I didn't have any excuse me, I didn't have any infections or issues with my scar or none none of that. It was all, you know, everybody was like, God, I wish everybody was like you. in physical therapy, the the nurses. And then when I went for my follow up, they just said, this is beautiful. You you did great. Keep it up. One of the big things that the doctor told me, and this is gonna sound like he was kind of being an ass, but he really wasn't. He was it was being truthful when I met him in those first ten minutes, the only 10 minutes, he told me I needed to lose weight. And I did need to lose weight. I was like forty pounds heavier than I am right now. And I knew that and I didn't need to hear it. But he said it will make your recovery so much better. So I did start losing some weight before. I still had a lot to lose by the time I had it because it wasn't it was like three or four months, so I might have lost twenty pounds. But still twenty pounds is twenty pounds. I don't even think I lost that much. I probably lost ten or twelve. But that did help. And, you know, it's hard to lose weight when you can't walk. You know, I I understand that, you know, w what you put on your fork has more to do with your weight than anything else. but when you're in pain and you're miserable and you're taking medications and you can't move and you're doing all the you know you can do just to get through the day, it's it's it's hard. And at your forty in your mid forties trying to lose weight, it's like, give me a break. but that was a catalyst to me losing some weight. And so far it's been offered about two years, so that's good. But like I said earlier, I've always struggled with my weight. It's not been an easy thing for me. It just is what it is. So I'm not naive enough to say that I'll never put that back on again. I don't know. Don't know what's gonna happen in my life that could trigger some weight gain. And but I do know that I know how to get it off when I can. So today my knee feels great. I mean my scar looks amazing. It doesn't hurt at all. I had forgotten what a non painful knee. Like a I forgot what a normal knee felt felt like because it's probably I probably haven't I've probably had some degree of pain in my knee since high school. So this is like wild to me. So that three weeks of misery that I really hated everybody and everything and hated that doctor and never was gonna get my knee done again and I'll I'll drag my left leg of for for the rest of my life 'cause I'm definitely not doing this. Short little blimp and it does suck when you're in it, but the out the you know Outside of it, it's just so much better. It's so much better. I just didn't even realize how bad it was. And you probably if you're in this if you're a staring at an e replacement, you might be the same. You might, especially if you have rheumatoid or some sort of inflammatory disease that causes pain, you might not even realize how bad it is. But you're gonna be so happy when you do it and you get on the other side. I just have to say, you have to be a good patient with this. You can't be a bad patient. You have to do the exercises, you have to keep it clean, you you know, you have to just make the sacrifice for three short weeks of the like grunt of it, and then you will start to slowly see the other side. There was a woman who was like six weeks ahead of me. She's like, It's gonna be worth. She was giving me a pep talk. I know you're miserable. I know it's terrible. I know you hate it. It's gonna be worth it, I promise. So that's me today to anyone who's thinking of doing it. Highly recommend. try to find a good physical therapy place. like I you know, I I happen to the physical therapy's been great for me. And the two places I've done it here, I've had some really great and wonderful people. So that helped because the worst thing is if you go and you don't like the people and you don't like what you're doing and it's all miserable. So if that's your case, I'd suggest find somebody else because if there's nothing good happening, if you can't smile and have some fun through this whole thing, if you don't feel taken care of or whatever, then you know, go somewhere else. It's if you know that's your that's your decision and your choice and you're right. So that's my total knee replacement story. I walk a lot now. I mean the last couple of weeks I have it, but I I do struggle with my other knee and it's funny because that knee is totally different type of pain. It's not it it is more of an everyday ache, that one, than my other one. there's one spot, it's very sore and it swells and some days I just can't. I'm icing it on my couch. I have a beamer machine. I don't know if anybody knows what that is, but It's a pemph machine and basically it's like pulsating electromagnetic fields and you put it on for like seven minutes at whatever frequency and it kind of I don't pretend to know the science behind it, but from my limited understanding, it just increases the blood flow to that area and helps to heal it quicker and gets the inflammation out. And it's almost magic some days. Like I'm in pain, I put that on. and then I feel better. Some days it doesn't do that much, but some days it does. And the only problem with that is they're expensive. I had a family member who worked for that company and we were able to get one at a reasonable price, but otherwise they're like five thousand dollars. You'll see them in chiropractor care centers and things like that. But generally you don't see too many of them in a house. my big thing after my surgery was when can I go back in my sauna? And that was an easy question to answer as soon as my incision is totally healed. So like it would be the same as you don't want to be sweating with an incision that isn't healed. Cause then you can get infected and that happened in my hand surgery because I had it was summer and my daughter had a soccer game and I had so I was sweating so bad I took the plastic thing off and it my incision got infected so then I had to take antibiotics and blah blah blah blah blah. So you don't want to do that either. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. so yeah, that's it. If you have any questions, if I missed something, if you you know, there's something that you want to know, if you want to reach out and just pick my brain about a total knee replacement. I'm happy to share. I'm happy always to be a reference for whatever you need or whatever you're fe feeling or thinking. I will say the mental load of it was harder than the physical. And like I was saying physically it is very difficult. But in this season of my life, relying on everybody I mean my I felt bad. My husband goes to work. He's a tries to go to the gym for the five o'clock class. So he's up at four o'clock every day. He works long hard days and I was waking him up three or four times a night to give me medicine to make me help me to the bathroom. I mean it was it was it's a lot on the your support system is gotta be there. He had to go to work and someone needed to stay with me. So my mother had to be there for a good the solid first month. She felt bad leaving when she did, I think she stayed for three and a half weeks and then she had something back in Boston she had to go to and she felt terrible leaving me. I'm like, I can do it. I can do it. But like I was excited to have her back. I could do it, but it was just extra movement. It was it was extra exhausting not having somebody just to like make you a something to eat or get you a glass of water because you're using the walker and you s you know, and then you get somewhere and you gotta sit for a minute and then you know, so your support system has to be there and I I do know that some people do it alone, but thank God I didn't have to. I also heard I don't know how true this is, but somebody told me the younger you do it, the more painful it is because your nerve endings are more alive than they are more and you feel things more. I don't know. That does that make sense if you're a doctor out there. Could that be true? but it I the people that I have talked to who did it at 45 or in their forties, because I know three others, said it was pretty miserable. And then my father's friend had it done a month before mine. He's like, Yeah, it wasn't too too bad. It was bad, but it wasn't too too bad. So then I'm like, maybe that is true. Not to scare anyone out there, but I've heard more than once it's harder when you're younger. So, anyways, that's all I got for you guys today. as always, please check out my website, the autoimmune mom.com. You can get all of my episodes there. if you want to be a guest on my show, you can fill out a guest request form. If you want to ask me a question, there's a way to send an email. If you are interested in following me on socials, the autoimmune mom podcast doc at once. The Autoimmune Mom Podcast on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. I'm not a Twitter girly. I heard I should be, but or X, whatever the hell we're calling it these days. so yeah, or TikTok, I don't do that one either. Do you think I should? Let me know. All right. If you're still listening, thank you. Thank you for being here. And and I'll talk to you guys later. Take care of yourself, Mama.