I truly feel for you. One thing I do take that I do believe works is fish oil. Nasty stuff off a spoon but it is so very good for inflammation and I am sure a reason why at 3 weeks post op my knee is only I inch larger than my up operated knee. It also helps with arthritic pain.
Maybe that would be a good first addition to research. Just remember all fish oils are not created equal
I knew about the vit. K from a dentist after he extracted a wisdom tooth and I bled so much and bruised down my neck. After these doses, the second wisdom took came out without the bleeding. I tend to bruise alot and always have bruising somewhere. After the TKR I had solid purple on both sides of my calf and on the inside of inner knee as well as a the underside of my thigh where it pooled. I am not sure I have what you have but I should have known to be taking Vit K beforehand, and it totally slipped my mind. Some of the bruising will never completely clear up and I have permanent stains like a suntan. What is your condition called?
Thanks Lynn,
I have had a lifetime of bruising without memory of what I did to deserve it. Although I didn't have a TKR, the spontaneous hemorrhage in my knee caused immediate swelling of virutally my whole leg. Hours later, the awful purple and red areas appeared from my hip almost down to my toes. Black areas appeared later. I have some awful pictures on my phone to prove what happened. I can't imagine that a surgery on the knee could produce anything worse than that. And remember that I had no meds to take care of the pain. I stupidly choose to stay at home and deal with it because at that point I had no ortho to go to. The stains eventually disappeared, but the swelling took another 3 months to go back to a new normal.
The genetic blood defect is named PAI-1 Locus 4g/5g, (plasminogen activator inhibitor-1) which is gibberish for a condition in which I am in the middle position, that is, my blood will eventually clot, but then it will dissolve. If I were a 4g/4g or a 5g/5g, that would be bleeding all the time or else clotting all the time. This is my layman's explanation. My hematologist is the head of the dept. and he took the time to visit the lab and prepare the vials for delivery to another state to their lab. Previously I had had 25 tests under a different hematologist who found nothing and was about to send me to a medical school quite a ways from here and I resisted. Because I am old and getting cranky, I challenged him to take the problem on himself, by saying that he didn't get to the head of a department because he didn't know anything! Don't take me on a wild ride to someplace else! He agreed to try and actually quickly discovered the path he would take to identify it. The case study he wrote on me is in the Annals of Hematology and Oncology. I was happy that he pursued it and what he wrote may help other people like me who struggled to make doctors take a look at what I thought was a big problem. Just Google or go to any rare disorders website and read all the risk factors for this defect. I saw my father's family immediately in the risks listed. Thus I ventured to a cardiologist to follow up and will monitor for cancer. I saw myself on almost every page of that defect. I wrote the doctor up for an award from our medical center.
Even if you do not have that particular defect, you may have one pretty close to it and there are meds to use to control bleeding, but my hematologist was vague to how much and when to take them. But I think he will kick in and research it if I tell him I need him for an upcoming surgery.
Thanks a lot for the info you private messaged me. I will certain look into that and am overjoyed that someone is working on an easier TKR for people like me. I will sleep better tonight just knowing that.
Look into your bruising. I waited too long to do it myself. And thanks loads for caring.
I like the nutrition approach to most health issues and a while back, I started using fish oils on my own, but recently, from what I read or heard, you need to use the right kind. So I purchased a new bottle of cold water salmon oil from Alaska. Is this the best kind to use? I am looking forward to less arthritic pain. Chronic pain sure can ruin a person's day.
Thanks for caring.
Hi all,
I thought I would provide a little update.
I've been incident free for 3 weeks which, while nothing to write home about, is the longest I've done in a couple months.
I am making a point of doing something every day -- usually gentle stretches and ice, which I don't usually do proactively, only if there's an issue.
I'm also spending 10 minutes every few days doing "forced" knee extensions trying to regain the full extension.
I've noticed that the hamstring and calf where they meet the knee are very, abnormally exceptionally tight. I don't feel it necessarily unless I dig in (which shows you how used to stiffness I've become) but wow is it a lot tighter than the other side.
I wonder if that's the thing that's stopping me from getting full extension?
Anyhow, I'll keep going with this for now, and hopefully start to work in some ankle stuff to hopefully get on top of the ankle issues that have been so frequently coming up for me.