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Leg Surgery, how's it after?

LilRhodyXJ

NAXJA Forum User
As some of you know I was in a bad accident with my first XJ and my Leg was broken in the process. It happened in October of 05 and still today I feel like it won't heal. I'm wondering if anyone has had a surgery where there upper knee cap, femur and partial hip has been replaced by metal plates, rods and screws. I feel like everything I do feels to tender and this friggin limp won't go away. I lift, I run, I work, walk around campus..and It won't get better! Does the tenderness go away? Will I have confidence to do stuff on it at some point? I mean I barely can walk a straight line and I have to use the elipticle or stepper instead of a treadmill because It beats on my leg. I remember when I could bounce around and jump over stuff with no issues, climb fences, what ever it may be, but will I ever get it back? I'm so sick of it, I can't play sports with the boys, do freight at work anymore, I sometimes can't even get into my Jeep and its not that high!?

Sorry for my rant and rave but this is driving me up a tree. And no I am not whining, I get up everyday and feel like crap but I thank whatever "being" for saving my ass in that accident. I should have been paralyzed or worse and less then a year later I was crawling around and learning how to walk again. Someone give me some insight if you've had similar issues please.

BTW.. WEAR YOUR SEATBELT!!

That is all,
Andrew
 
man it sounds like you really f**ked yourself up. you are problably going to have to live with some of that pain forever. you really need to discuss those issuses with your doctor, see a physical therapist and let them know your pains, concerns and what you want to be able to do. I have patients with cronic pain and it can take months to heal esp. with as severe of injuries as it sounds like you recieved. A physical therapist can be you best friend in a situation like yours, believe me I have had to be rehabilitated from my own accidents, and finally went into the profession myself. keep your hopes up. you may have to slow down for a while but things get better
 
aug. 04 i had a motorcycle accident. went down at 70mph. no helmet. my knee and head took most of the impact.split my head open pretty good and really did a number on my knee. have a bad limp and a zipper scar on my noodle.
the knee thing has been been getting better, but it will never be 100% again. it is real tender, can't touch it sometimes, slightest pressure will feel like nails under the kneecap.
i know were you are coming from, hope yours gets better
 
Thanks guys. I went to physical therapy, and I go to the doctor all the time. I couldn't even go to my college of choice because I see my Doctor to much to leave the state. I stretch, do light stuff with it and it still doesn't like it yet. Whats up with the random twitches, and the quick shots of excrutiating pain? Has anyone healed an injury like this and continued to ski/ride...I dunno If I can go another season without doing either :D
flht1997 did you have a plate put in your head? I had to get one and its awkward not being able to feel sometimes. Hope your doing better


Andrew
 
Back in 1997, my wife had a terrible skiing acident in which she really banged up her left knee. She actually broke the joint in three different places.

Now the bad part. When the first doc went in to fix the breaks, he only found two and fixed them. He unknowingly left a piece of bone floating around in the joint.

Now the really bad part. He put her through months of PT trying to correct her knee that "didn't seem to want to work right." When she complained of it really hurting, he said she just wasn't trying hard enough. He suggest more agressive PT, all the while not knowing what the real problem was.

Finally, after seeing another doc (the first was too arrogant to believe he had done anything wrong), who went in with the scope and discovered the problem, we were able to start getting things resolved.

Fast forward ten years and nine surgeries later. She just went to see a new Doc (we just moved to a new town), and they are suggesting a replacement like you speak of. It is about our last course of action to gain any semblance of a "normal" quality of life.

She will be going in on Jan 30th to have this done. Please keep her in your prayers. Others we have spoken to that have had it done say that it is pure hell for about the first three weeks, and then the pain begins to let up. I will keep ya'll posted on her progress.
 
In 6th grade I had arthroscopic knee surgery to remove excess cartilage under each knee cap (was REALLY excess to the point my knees were clicking and grinding and locking and I would have to ice them after sports and heating pad them at night). Anyways it was a good 6 months before I ran. I took up a paper route though as my rehab and did 100 papers a day route on my bikes a good 3 miles or so every day. That sorta stuff you had done was much more extensive so I imagine it would take longer to heel

Also broke my ankle dunking in basketball, came down on a guy’s foot and rolled my ankle. Snapped loud like a tree branch. Had 3 screws put in? That was a while after it healed technically before I could run normal again. Then after a year the screws starting tingling, and had them taken out. That is rather minor but I think it was a good few weeks before all the soreness went away. You sound like your still in the recovery period?

Did you doctor say you can run yet?
 
He told me stregth wise it will not break I basically I have my leg back...but pain and muscle strength wise its not there yet...he said to run and bike w/ a little lifting
 
LilRhodyXJ said:
He told me stregth wise it will not break I basically I have my leg back...but pain and muscle strength wise its not there yet...he said to run and bike w/ a little lifting

well i would bike to your heart cant take it but running is rough on your joints even if your healthy. Getting into long distance running is no small feat, and most adults cant take running say 2 miles. I would take it easy and give up running for a good 3-4 months. Only after you can bike and climb stairs with little to no pain. I am not a doctor but i have plenty of friends who were not in the mindset to take it easy from football, and wrestling injuries and we are all 22-27 years old. A bunch of my buds have arthritis in mid 20s from hurrying back from serious injuries. They are gonna be a wreck when they are 40-50 years old.

My ankle i took it easy, never hurts. Same with my knees, i use to almost cry from playing basketball, couldnt play catcher in baseball if my life depended on it in 5th grade from the cartialge i explained in other post. I am 27 i can squad for a hour if i have to, crawl around on my knees all day. My knees have hurt maybe on 5 occasions in 14 years since my surgery (counting AFTER THEY HEALED, i was wraped in ace bandage like casts for a week, and on wheel chair, then crutches then LOL a cane in 6th grade)

TAKE IT EASY. Your not a pro athlete, no one cares if it takes you 8 months or a year to get healthy and in shape again.
 
Take it easy on your joints and do the rehab, but remember the joint will never be as good as new. I made my living racing motorcycles professionally for 2.5 years. I have had 14 orthopedic surgeries in the last 32 years and have a little wheelchair on my license plate. I just beat my body up too much and now that I am getting older, just getting out of bed in the morning is a major effort and I can't remember a day when something didn't hurt.

Take care of yourself.
 
What exactly was your injury. plates and screws doesnt really describe what you did to yourself. how old are you. how long since your injury? I have had a really bad knee injury. almost lost the leg. keep a good attitude and work hard. it will come.
 
Back in '98 I broke my back, in '00 I shattered my ankle and broke both femurs at the same time. I know all about the good ole "plates and pins". From my understanding, the only time they really use rods and pins, are when the bone isn't healing correctly. My physical therapy consisted of mountain biking every day. To this day, I can't really race MX anymore(hence the jeep), but I've gained all of my strength back.
 
ThE HiV said:
What exactly was your injury. plates and screws doesnt really describe what you did to yourself. how old are you. how long since your injury? I have had a really bad knee injury. almost lost the leg. keep a good attitude and work hard. it will come.

I shattered my femur, broke both knee caps, something in my hip was a little messed up but that was the easy, few pin fix, and I have a plate in my head.

My leg basically has a rod for a femur with some bone growing around it, a total of 6 screws, 4 pins, and theres this little metal plate looking thing on the top of me knee cap. I was 17 6' 3" when it happened now I am 18.
It happened October of 05. From the hospitol to home I did everything right, I still go to the doctor for check ups and he told me to lift, do bike/elipticle, and swim if possible. I just don't feel right and I went from playing football and doing track to now getting winded walking up steps. I took the slow healing for awhile but I noticed how tough it is for me to function "normally" the other day at work. It made me realize that I may never be the same.

Motorcity like you said a lot of people can't run very long because its grueling but before this accident I was one of those people thatcould run forever, maybe not fast, but I could run endurance well. I don't know what I'm going to do.
 
LilRhodyXJ said:
I shattered my femur, broke both knee caps, something in my hip was a little messed up but that was the easy, few pin fix, and I have a plate in my head.

My leg basically has a rod for a femur with some bone growing around it, a total of 6 screws, 4 pins, and theres this little metal plate looking thing on the top of me knee cap. I was 17 6' 3" when it happened now I am 18.
It happened October of 05. From the hospitol to home I did everything right, I still go to the doctor for check ups and he told me to lift, do bike/elipticle, and swim if possible. I just don't feel right and I went from playing football and doing track to now getting winded walking up steps. I took the slow healing for awhile but I noticed how tough it is for me to function "normally" the other day at work. It made me realize that I may never be the same.

Motorcity like you said a lot of people can't run very long because its grueling but before this accident I was one of those people thatcould run forever, maybe not fast, but I could run endurance well. I don't know what I'm going to do.


well if you could run decent before i take it that means you arent an over weight long out of shape fat ass slob. That makes rehab easy. Lots of great pro athletes that have a team of training and phy therapists helping them and whom have nothing better to do than train .... they take a year to get healthy again. I think your not being realistic at all for all the hardware you have in you. Heck even after my ankle healed (it was a NASTY clean brake like completely sheared in halfright at the socket chopped sidways) it was healed in terms of bone strength but i could definately "just feel" the screws in there shifting around and tweaking my nerves.

You need to mentally prepare you self for in my lay persons opinion ... a good two - three years of lingering mild pain. Thats assumin your going to have a surgery in the future to take the hardware out.
 
Every body and every accident is a little different.
But having trashed my body more than a little, I sure can relate.
Your young that is a plus.
I shattered my lower leg and left ankle, back in the days before metal rods, screws and those techniques (though I do have a parital stainless steel jaw). I spent half a year in an exo. I had a lot of nerve problems. Many of the nerves run near the bone and some actually in grooves in the bone and/or through the bone. The bone was rebuilding and wasn't really following the original program in some ways. Some nerves were getting squeezed. I have a lot fewer bones in my ankle and foot than I was originally built with.
I ended up addicted to some kind of morphine, Which was a whole other set of problems to deal with. Detox really sucks, about as much fun as Malaria.
Pyshical therapy was a real help. When I finally got to the point, where the doc said it was OK for me to work it some. I worked mostly for strength. And did my cardio in the *pool*. My uncle was my swimming instructor, he had no legs at all and could out swim me.
Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but I back packed and lifted wieghts. Then took a job as furniture mover for a year, just for the exercise. Painfull but affective. It's been over thirty five years and I still can't run very well (relative to what I could do before), but can step it out and walk forever. I did screw up a couple of times, by breaking cartilage loose by overdoing it.
A few non traditional things that helped me out were Yoga and hypnotism for pain. Maybe it was my Yoga instructor, maybe just Yoga in general, but it sure worked for me. Also spent a lot of time at the Dojo. Kept me limber and helped with coordination. Learning how to move, on my new to me, ankle, foot and leg. My instructor had a nerve dead leg and was a qualified therapist himself. The resources are out there, though you may have to look some.
Try and do the best you can with what you've got. Take it easy on the pain meds. Like the Apaches are supposed to have said, pain is overated. You learn to deal with it. I can do a two mile run, but sure pay the penalty for a few days or a week afterwords. I still use the techniques I learned in Yoga class (over thirty five years ago) to deal with the pain.
 
The pain does suck but like you said I've learned to deal with most of it. Once in awhile though my leg actually locks up, Doc says its do to the amount of scar tissue built up along with the nerve damage. If it does this it brings me to tears. I can't sit, walk, move, flinch anything or I get these excrutiating pulses of pain through my leg. I was at work the other day and I was moving a pallet with a pallet jack and my leg just stopped, I fell and had to lay there for a good 5 minutes before I could get back up. I wouldn't no what to do if that happened when I was driving or something else like that.

Thanks for everyones advice so far. I know I should give it time but I'm sure you all can understand about how active an 18 year old college freshman would like to be.
 
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