hamyam

Hi my wife is in need of new knees but as she is 49 years old the doctors are saying she is to young unless she pushes them to do the op earlier. Has anyone had a knee replacement or knows of someone who has, and was it successful?

jods

My Dad is late 60's and is going in for keyhole surgery on his right knee just before xmas. I'll keep you posted. He had a shoulder joint replaced a few years ago and after a few weeks of discomfort post op, he was very pleased indeed with the results.

Hope it all goes well, theres nowt worse than a wife who can't "assume the position" on the old knees !!!

OllyK

Father in law had his done a couple fo years ago after a 10 year wait on the NHS.

I believe the issue is that the replacement knee has a 10-15 year life and they can't replace it again after that. Hips I think they can do twice. After that, you're weel chair bound.

David_Dickson

Last time I looked into this, artificial joints had an expected life of 10 - 15 years, so the NHS are unwilling to fit them to someone younger, as they will need to be re-done again (possibly twice) in the future.
I dont know, maybe materials and design have improved in the last few years, but I havent heard anything much.

worley

I know several people with new knees, from what I here it's not always rosy, with risks of infection. However, I know of three people whose lives have been transformed radically.

It depends a lot on regional surgical expertise and the model of knee implanted.


Nik

webby v7 slipperwagon

iTrader: (2)

I had keyhole surgey, in may 06. Due to years of footie, and it has made my knee worse. Which they informed me could happen, but i took the chance at nearly £4k. The swelling i previously had went but it locks up a lot now and can be bloody painfull, but i'm probably a minority, especially as my knee was pretty shot anyway.

Good Luck

Webby

Scooby Snacks 23

I've had 6 ops on my right knee - various cartilidge problems and then ACL reconstruction twice. I also have a fair degree of arthritus in there now too, and I'm only 37.

I discussed a new knee with my surgeon and he said to forget it, I'm far too young. I think they're like hip replacements - they have a shelf live of 10-20 years so they don't like giving them to anyone under their 60.

Jon H

It may well be worth looking into Knee Resurfacing which I believe is growing in popularity. I had a hip resurfacing about 5 years ago and it's working wonders and doesn't limit activity at all - although I have a total hip replacement on the other side which means 'no repetitive jarring?!'. I did have to go private for the resurfacing though as it wasn't available via the NHS. I'm 33 now btw.
Best of luck!
Jon

Fat Boy

13 ops so far on my left knee - 11 keyhole which are walks in the park in comparison to reconstruction or replacement. My 2 big ops were reconstructions. Thanks rugby :rolleyes;

I am a candidate at some point for TKR (46 years old, arthritic, grinding/clicking knee) but, as other posters have posted here, the life of these are around 15 years currently and that's if the person is older and reasonably sedentary. The advice I have been given is to hang on to what I've got for as long as possible in the hope that science catches up. Big advances in cartilage re growth science in the last 5 years means that re surfacing of that can now be doen with pretty good succes rates, but the dream of regrowing bony 3D bits of a new knee in a test tube and sticking it or the vital bits in is still some way off.

The issue over the years has been microscopic bits of the artificial joint flaking off through use, causing an immune response which weakens the connection between the joint and the original bone ( hence they like it if you're old as you won't be charging around too much). The good news is that technology is slowly catching up and today's systems are improving in that regard, but are still far from perfect. One replacement can usually be catered for but it involves cutting back further into whatever remaining bone structure there is left so it's not a given.

I have a friend who is a big lad -108kg, 55 years old, 2 replacements on one knee and last summer had his other one done. He's off skiing next year as he's done every year he hasn't been actually flat on his back with the docs for one of those ops...

His view of the Op was "very painful 2-3 days, then painful 6-8 weeks rehab all manageable with drugs, plus ongoing tyranny of exercise/ physio. Were all the ops worth it? Absolutely

hamyam

Thanks for the replays. My wife has arthritis in both knees and they are both bone on bone so very painful. She had them both washed out 3 months ago but the swelling has not gone down at all and they are more painful then before the op.What she is thinking is to have them replaced as soon as possible so she can be more active now instead of waiting till she is older. Think she wants convincing they would be better then whets she has at the moment really

RJM25R

iTrader: (1)

On a comical note, I smashed my right ankle and dislocated my foot playing rugby league when I was 21 (Think Alan Smith/Eduardo injury only worse because I was playing semi-pro so there were no "proper" medics there)and had 3 titanium pins and a small plate put in and they stayed in for 3 years, along with loads of physio etc. to make a full recovery (albeit with a right leg 8mm shorter than my left LOL!)

Anyway, for the 3 years, I always set the metal detector off at the airport, which is fine when you're flying out, but no good when you're coming back and trying to explain it LOL!!!!

SJ_Skyline

Found this site: KNEEgeeks - Index

They were really helpfull with advice before I had my op earlier this year (Elmslie-Trillat) to stabilise my knee. Had the op at the end of July and I reckon I'm back to about 75% fitness now although I have great difficulty crawling, it just feels so odd!

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

Make her think long and hard about pushing the doctors for knee cap replacements, If they don't last long enough they won't keep replacing them as they just fuse the bone and weld the leg straight as I know a few people that have had this done to them!!

Fat Boy

it's not knee cap replacements we're talking about here, it's potentially TKR.

Get second and third opinions from orthopaedic surgeons before doing anything, but if she has really degenererative athritic changes (as opposed to some missing cartilage which can sometimes be treated with the easy to handle keyhole surgery route) then it seems likely that she should go for it in my humble and unqualified opinion. We have a friend who is in her late 30's with really bad rheumatoid arth - needs hips and knees doing,but is at the mercy of the NHS and is painfully struggling along with two small children. She can't wait.

My other mate, who I mentioned above, the heavy skier raves about his knees and I know he'd say go for it

Hope it works out for her

Fat Boy

Some new stupid rule about not being able to edit after 5 mins

I meant to go on to say that sites like knee guru can be useful but they can also be scary as by definition most people who post on there post bad experiences whereas those with good experiences move on so don't take them completely to heart

Any big op like this then go to the best in the country, if you can. I had most of the early operations with a leading orthopaedic surgeon called John Browett in the Princess Grace in Harley Street ( he looked after Lineker and lots of other sports stars) but when my knee eventually became more tricky he sent me on to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore in North London, which is the Oxbridge of orthopaedic hospitals in the UK. I don't know where you are in the country and although I was lucky enough to have private insurance, the RNOH also does NHS stuff and the surgeons are the same. Brilliant people. When other surgeons ask me who did the knee and I mention Professor Bentley did it, there's always this sort of respectful silence - one of them, who was also a leading harley st bloke, just said "ah, our guru". Which is nice...The rationale behind this long story is go to the best you can get to and then trust them.