I am almost 3 weeks from surgery and walking comfortably with one crutch, getting in and out of the car and bed easily eith no aids. I do my excercises twice a day and walk 20 minutes in the afternoon. The hip feels like there is something there but is really not an issue as far as any pain. Now the knee, wow, it feels like I am rehabing the knee and not the hip. I have gotten back about 50% of the flex but for the rest - the tightness is amazing. I can picture a long road back to full flexibility.  When I sit I put the leg up on a chair so it is always getting the full stretch - this I was told to do. Is this knee tightness what everyone else feels??

Bill,
Obviously everybody is different but I think that just about all of us have had that to a certain degree.  I found that in the first few weeks, while sitting, if I kept my knee straight for too long it was painful to bend it, and if I kept it bent too long it was painful to straighten it out.  Most of the pain was in my thigh, though.  Knees were also a little weak.  Maybe it depends somewhat on your muscle tone before the surgery?  I don't really know.

Be assured, though, that this will all resolve soon.  Just keep doing those exercises and walk, walk, walk.

I  originally should have said knee and thigh tension. How many weeks did it take for you to bring the knee to the 90 degree flex without any pain or tension in the muscles?

Bill, all I can tell you is that we've all had that. The tightness and the transferred soreness I think comes from several things:  

• the other parts of the leg / body taking over while the hip grows stronger.
  
• the incision and manipulation that was done to the muscles
• overcoming the years of compensation the body did for the pain

I taught martial arts for a while, and one of the things I tried to tell new students when they got frustrated by seeing others do the splits when they couldn't touch their toes was that flexibility takes time and patience. Lack of patience leads to injuries that set you back. I've tried to apply that to my recuperation, and my ROM and flexibility, while not back to where they were yet, are coming along.

The Physical therapy was very helpful in that, doing your exercises and eventually the stretches they give you will help a lot. When I went into PT, as an example, my sideway leg stretch was about 30 degrees, which is about 15 degrees below normal. A month and a half later, when I graduated, it was at 55 degrees, which was closer to normal for me.  

I've kept up with the stretches, and now with 7 months and 4 months, I am flexible enough, but still have not met my goals. I can put my palms flat on the ground from standing. So things progress if you take it slowly, do the exercises and avoid pain.

I still have some tension, especially in the IT band, so I use a roller to deal with that.

I never really had any problems bending my knees.  My problems are in other areas.  My quads, hamstrings and hip flexors are all really tight.  My OA caused me to walk with a slightly bent forward gait for several years.  Even though my hips are now fixed my quads are still so tight I have a hard time standing up completely straight.  The fact that I used to row on an indoor rower regularly for about 12 years without doing much stretching probably didn't help either.  My PT is now really concentrating on getting those areas stretched out.  It can be painful and slow and frustrating but I know that now, at least, with work and patience I will be able eventually to get things fixed.

Not sure if you have the same thing, but the "soreness", really, the tissue damage slid down my leg into my knee, which is where it is right now.  I believe this is fairly common as the damaged tissue works away from the trauma site.  Doc says I should do a full leg massage from the lower back all the way down to the foot to break it up, get blood flowing and move out the scar tissue.  But yes, post-op day 25 and my knee is sore and a little swollen.  It's tight in there.

I called my Doc's PA a week ago - just to check in - and he asked me out of the blue if my knees had started to hurt.  He went on to explain that the knee pain is very common.

Cheers - Phill

Thanks for the replies. Seems like everything is going normally for me - I just have to be patient with this. To hear how it is going on with other recoveries is most reasuring.

Bill,

I am having the exact same experience. I think it is business as usual.

hernanu, is the roller for massaging? Where do you get them please?