Hey Everyone,
any of you had a total knee replacement, and still surf?
Or know anybody who still surf after a total knee replacement, even if it’s in a big board in mushy waves?
Please share your inspiration. Thanks.
-B
i know some of you old timers have had knee replacements?
school me!
i know couple of guys that had it and still surf
i have an appointment on monday to discuss total replacements for both knees
they say if you do it to do both at the same time
there are three people in my office who had it and are much happier and more mobile
both my knees are on the verge of going after three surgeries
and little if no meniscus in either
i can barely walk these days
if affected my health and surfing due to the immobility to exercise
i don’t want the surgery but its better to get it down now then later
you need to go to the best ortho you can get
i’m in an HMO so it’s sketchy at best
oneula. thanks for the reply.
can you post back on Monday and let me know what your doctor says?
best of luck to you.
look on the daily shaka…there is a blog…intruder in the surf…she had one and is doing great. you have alot of good choices when it comes to this
good luck,
danno
surg tech/ortho 20+ yrs…ortho medical rep 10 yrs
With the right surgeon, no reason you shouldn’t be able to. My brother in law, a very active 64 year old, just had his knee replaced 3 months go, extremely pleased with the outcome, back to cycling, starting to hike again. Lot to be said for seeing a surgeon versed in the newest techniques that does a lot of surgeries each week. the good ones are usually 3 months out on their surgery schedule.
Post-op rehab is everything, the more work you do, the better the results. One of the worse things to do is wait until you’re losing muscle tone and mobility, means you go into the surgery with just that much more work to do to get back to your best ‘new normal.’ Smart to see a PT before surgery, the same one you plan on working with on your post-op rehab. They can give you a home program to use within your current limits to get you ready for surgery.
I had the same fear before total hip replacement, that a bad outcome would mean the end of my surfing days. Now just 16 days post-op from replacement, thanks to an agressive home and clinic PT program, I’m already walking well with light cane assist, spinning a bit on my excercise bike, and plan on being back in the water ten weeks from now.
Find yourself a good surgeon, ask around about a good local PT (sports med PT the best), get a game plan together to do what you need to do so you can keep surfing!
email Greg Loehr, he just had both replaced
all the best
thanks for the replies everyone.
Saw the doc on the 6th
he was kind of shocked at the joint degradation in just two years between xrays
he thought I must have some type of hereditary defect for that to happen
healso said the knee won’t last much longer
've also become more severely bowlogged(never noticed) because of the joint getting all out of wack
which they will have to correct after they cut out the knee
The knee is stuck in an odd angle pointing outwards
i asked for both but he doesn;t want to do it
he said my left is failing because its basically carrying all the load since my right is no longer structurally sound
he thinks once the right is fixed the left should get better
earliest i can get in is 2-25
wearing braces till then
6 week rehab 1 year total recovery for the bones to heal
said it would be stiff at best but no where near as painful as it is today
he said it should not be anywhere as painful as the cecerean like stomach surgery i had for my burst appendix in 2012
can’t wait to get it over with
and get thru rehab
hopefully I’ll be ready for some surfing by time summer hits and my home break start firing again
Wow, Bernie. The hits just keep coming. Do give GL a call. I know he would enjoy talking. PM me if you need his number.
May God grant you a speedy painless recovery.
all the best
yup
my fault for putting off getting this finally fixed for the past 6-8 years when I originally popped it and found out i had no menicus left in the right knee
the doc warned me about the coming severe osteoarthritis because oif the direct bone to bone contact
been back to the surgery table twice more after popping the left surfing(trimmed and cleaned up)
and then reinjuring the right again foolishly trying to “jog” to get back in shape
but there always seemed to be another business trip or big project at work in the making to cause me to delay it but i can barely walk anymore
funny as I was supposed to go top Orlando the second week this April for a business conference and was thinking of visiting the florida folks.
but that is out at least for now I guess it depends on the rehab
most of this I’m sure is fromall the abuse i took in the 70’s and 80’s skiing the bumps when i was living in the pacific northwest (seattle)
as well as all the tennis we played in the summer and when I first got back home
when you are in your 20’s-30’s you feel indestructable.
never was one for running but too much hard court tennis and icy mogul skiing will do it to your knees
funny in that the worst injury I ever had skiing was a torn archiles tendon i got after running into a tree stump when I was mono skiing the back country.
i once stupidly skied down from the top of whistler in the late 70’s on one ski after breaking my bindings at the top and was unable to rent replacement skis or catch a ride back down on the lift. took a long time but i learned allot about balance (painfully) doing it.
I’ll email GL
but its’ time to get this fixed…
I wanna be able to surf again like i used to.(allot)
.
Yup, had both done a year ago. Same exact symtoms with a very rapid degeneration over a two year period. Hereitary for me as well. If you want to surf the you have to go all out in PT for the flexibility you’ll need which is minimum 130 degrees. The machines your on go to 120 which is good but make sure you crank that thing up all the way from the day of surgery on. The model I got, Stryker Triathelon, is designed to go to 150. The aware that once the scar tissue takes hold it’s aweful to try to break down. Bust it up from the beginning. I got 130 and can surf although not much in AZ so … Snowboarding, stand up, even skateboarding is no problem at all. But none of these require the surfing pop up which is THE issue. Strength in your quads and flexibility in the knee is what you have to aim for. As the pad in between the parts wears you get more flexibility which makes getting up easier but this can take years to help. Therapy in a pool is paramont, the biggest single tip I can give. Best of luck. If it all goes right the other side of this is a very nice outcome.
My GF had a total knee done about 1 1/2 years ago. I second GL’s advice… she had to go in a second time and have a range of motion procedure done while under anesthesia. She did not have access to a passive ROM machine as described above. Her ROM isn’t as good as expected, and it isn’t pain free but it sure beats bone on bone. She is able to ski, SUP, and participate in daily activities like hiking, bicycling, walking the dogs, etc.
I found lcc’s comment about the “newest techniques” interesting. I’ve been in the medical field, including ortho, for nearly 40 years now and have heard surgeons say that they refuse to use the newest technology until it’s been proven long term… like 15 years out. “I won’t use my patients as guinea pigs” is a quote that comes to mind. The general public often doesn’t hear about technology failures in the medical field until a company issues a recall or a major class action law suit is filed. By then, it may be too late for those who tried to get in too early.
If I was you, I’d contact Dansan via PM and pick his brain. I’m guessing he’s been there. If he’s willing to speak freely, he’s obviously a guy who can shed light on the subject.
Think I’m kidding? Check the links…
Knee Replacement Class Action (DePuy)
Knee Replacement Class Action II (Zimmer)
"I found lcc’s comment about the “newest techniques” interesting. I’ve been in the medical field, including ortho, for nearly 40 years now and have heard surgeons say that they refuse to use the newest technology until it’s been proven long term… like 15 years out. “I won’t use my patients as guinea pigs” is a quote that comes to mind. The general public often doesn’t hear about technology failures in the medical field until a company issues a recall or a major class action law suit is filed. By then, it may be too late for those who tried to get in too early’
I’ll offer two examples of new techniques. Back in the 80’s one of the 49er team surgeons was using a hot wire to cauterize bulding discs that were leaking, a technqiue he devloped with a dozen other pro sports team ortho surgeons in cross consultatoin. Scoffed by many mainstream surgeons, it became the go to surgery to this day for athletes requiring a rapid return to full contact with minimal complicatons.
Anterior total hip replacement, which I just had performed 4 weeks ago, has been a mainstream technique used in Europe for 20 years. When Dr. Joel Matta brought the technique here to the states and statred using it, the ortho surgical community slammed it heavily as a whole, regardless of studies which heavily favored the anterior/Hanna table techniue for more favorable results, less muscle damage, better positioning of the implant, and far fewer post-op disloctions… And yet, here in Oregon, only 4 surgeons out of all the hip replacement surgeons use the anterior technique, and all four are mid 40’s, up to date sports surgeons. Why the resistance to change and adopt from the older surgeons? Pure economics and laziness. Their already lined up 3 months out with patients for surgery who don’t know any better, didn’t do the self research, last thing they are going to do is halt their surgical/income flow while they spend time working with anterior specialists to observe and learn the technique, which is a must. Ny surgeon spent 500 hours of his own time, unpaid, learning the tchnique from another surgeon trained directly by Dr. Matta. Now he does 300 hips a year, all anterior, .
Difference in outcomes?, ,10 hips were done at the Salem Hospital Joint Replacement Center on the day my hip was replaced. I was the only anterior hip replacement, the rest posterior. We all had group PT. I was up and walking the day of surgery, pushing my walker around the floor the day after surgery. The posterior patients? total wrecks compalining about their pain, wanting more pain meds, uinable to complete the initial excercises that are so important to get on. I went home less then 48 hours after surgery, some of the posterior patients were still on blood replacement transfusion. Every nurse and PT that supported me while in the hospital said the only hip replacement they would have for themselves would be anterior, they see the same results day after day - anterior patients up first, minimal pain, first to go home.
At the pt clinic I worked out in, two posterior patients are struggling with their PT, one still one still on crutches, the other on a cane. I’ve been off the cane for two weeks, currently spinning for 20 mins on the bike at a time, doing light hand weight lunges ,squats, power band work, using upper body weights, My PT says he sees it time and time again, the difference in surgical technique outcome… And yet less then one in 20 hip replacement surgeons peform anterior hip replacement.
Cutting edge doesn’t mean unproved experimental. It means researching the latst proven techniques for the surgery you need.for your condition. Too many surgeons go thru their inital residency training, get board certified, start building their practice, and do what they were trined to do the same way 30 years later.
And then their are the higher end, usually sports med surgeons, who are constantly updating themselves on improvements in techniques and implant devices, willing to take ‘no pay’ time to observe other surgeons, travel to ‘cutting edge discussion’ conferences, and keep themselves as up to date i their field as possible.
Long winded, cause very passionate about it. I spent decades in health care, managing hospital operations, working very closely with the medical staff. My wife is an orthopedic nurse by training who spent 8 years on one gig as the primary nurse supporting one of the 49er team surgeons, and we know far too many it went wrong because…’ stories.
It’s your body. surgery results tend to be permanent. Research your surgeon. Interview more then one if your health plan will let you. Ask questoins. What’s your revision rate. What’s your post-surgical infection rate. What PT do you prefer. What implant do you want to put in me and why that one?
You don’t buy pop-outs off the rack, right?.
I agree ICC, I had a shopping list of what I wanted in a surgeon for my replacement. Mid 40’s age, top 25% in the US in numbers done a year, top internet rating, narrow specialty field. I had another guy that was older, did my arthroscopic, that I was disappointed with. I felt, with good reason, that he was less than up to date. Asked him about an unloader brace and he’d never heard of it. WTF?
When I went to Dr. Dixon I was immediately impressed with what he told me. He answered every question even better than I expected (that infection rate is a huge one the one thing my doc really fears). Later I went to joint camp and the nurses told me he was the doc they all went to. Like ICC, I was standing the day of the surgery and walking with a walker the next day. I know four guys here in AZ I would feel very confident with so good guys are around. Do your best to find the right guy. The most important decision you’ll ever make.
thanks for all the responses everyone.
I have 2 questions for oneula and greg:
1 - did the doctor specifically say you would be able to surf again? was this discussed?
2 - what about wearing a leash on the leg with a replaced knee. is this something that shoudl be avoided?
man, i feel like they need to invent a knee replacement that doesnt’ wear out, or that doesn’t require a revision in 20-30 years. Like one where they could go in a change a bearing out, without having to re-do the whole thing.
thanks for the info!
Kind of hard to do when you belong to an HMO like I do
But when I saw my bill for my last procedure (burst appendix) I was glad I was on the HMO
every time I go under general there its like rolling the dice whether I’ll come out alive or not
But my ortho(young guy) already has gone in on both my knees via arthro three times before and each time he scares me
last time right before I got the IV to go under as you go through the constant what’s your name what’s your birthday quiz he got the wrong knee when he asked me. “what are we doing whith you now?” didn’t know if he was kidding or not. And yeah he warned me about the infection issue. I guess there’s been allot of deaths because of it with the joint like John pointed out with the recalls.
My cousin is head nurse at Straub Ortho and recommended an old collegue who transferred to Kaiser to run the Ortho Dept, he did her mom’s knees(she don’t surf though), So I’ll check around
The best Ortho’s are at Straub though
Unfortunately there’s an off season swell coming next week and potentially a big west wrap this weekend
we’ll see maybe a last hurrah before the trauma that will follow…
glad I like physical pain
makes me know I’m human
thanks for all the advice though
keep you posted
My doc told me that new knees are good for 15 to 30 years, 15 for me. Guess he thinks I’ll wear them out quicker than average. But what wears out is the pad between the femar and the tibia parts. He said that nowdays they can just replace the pad. He even told me that it’s an outpatient thing.
Surfing hurt a bit at 9 months but I was still healing. Snowboarding isn’t bothering me at all now. The only thing that has hurt recently is kicking a soccer ball. Twists the knee pretty harshly. But I’m at one year now and I still think there is further healing to go. Other than kicking a ball nothing has bothered me at all.
Doc told me he didn’t think I would be able to surf. Don’t know why, I’ll have to ask him, but he said snowboarding would be fine. I’m guessing that he probably thought I wouldn’t have the flexibility to pop up. But I do.
I don’t think a leash would hurt at all.
thanks guys. good link.
hey greg, can you ask your doctor why he said you may not be able to surf, and let us know what his reasoning is?
guess once our knees are effed we could always bellyboard, right?
get tubed all day long till our backs break.