Back to Sports After Partial Knee Replacement

AUTO TRANSCRIPT:

My name is Pedro. I had a lateral mako partial knee replacement on my left knee. It was been bothering me for a while for several years. I went to one of my original health plan providers and they actually suggested a, a full knee replacement. And I was researching over the net, other options, and I saw Dr. Stone, and this was about three years ago on the left. And he said, no, you don't need a full knee replacement. You just need really the partial on the lateral side because the rest of your knee compartments are fine.

When my original doctor said I needed to have a full knee replacement, I re researched that and I didn't think I was really ready for that. And I was actually looking in initially to all these newer or techniques like meniscus surgery and things like that. So I saw Dr. Stone in one of the TED talks about the BioKnee. So I came in to see if that would work for me. But my lateral side had degraded to a bone on bone condition, but he suggested it, what he can do for you is to actually do a, a partial knee replacement. And the benefit of that, it's not as intrusive as a full knee, and I get to keep my ACL and MCL ligaments so it feels more natural, and the recovery time from that will be less. And sure enough, after he did the, the procedure everything he told me was pretty much true, and after a while it became like this forgotten knee where the left knee is now better than the right knee.

After the surgery, I think I was on crutches for maybe that more than two or three days actually. And, and started walking shortly after that. And it was really more about regaining my strength. But the pain was gone, the, the pain that I was feeling before that was gone. So it was more about getting the muscle strength back and doing the physical therapy here at the stone clinic. And I would say within a couple months I was pretty much back to being almost full strength. I started riding my bike at around two months and really around four months I was even doing a little light jogging and the walking was not a problem anymore. So the recovery went, went really well.

The feeling was very natural, and I remember also I had it done in May of that year, and I actually skied in December of that year, you know, so it felt very natural. It felt very strong and the right knee was okay, you know? And actually, so the left knee was actually better than the right knee, and the, and the right knee is was starting to degrade three years ago. But I was able to get back to biking, mountain biking long hikes, all those kind of activities like to do, and a little bit of a light jogging. So those things kind of, kind of happened when awesome with, with the procedure.

The team was really great here. Right after the procedure I think it was the next day or the day after, I went right into physical therapy and we went into actual some exercises and massage on the area. And I think I came back maybe two or three times a week for the first few weeks. And it really, I think, really helped with the healing, you know, getting it moving. It wasn't all about just making it stiff, you know, just not doing anything like a heel. It was more about keeping the knee active, keeping the blood flowing. And the staff here really knew what they were doing when it came to that.