Thursday, November 12, 2009

Double Knee Replacement

John LaPointes' Double Knee Replacement

Dr. Bose, firstly I want to thank you again for the "miracle" of the new knees. After the initial recovery I have been Pain free. Before it was a struggle to walk one block, and tennis was becoming more difficult and increasing painful (a constant 7). Now I can walk comfortably for any reasonable distance, and have become a "butterfly on the court".

The information I am sending you is a record of the stretching for the knees and the dates and rate of increasing range of movement. All of this was accomplished with a variety of exercises, and painful but successful forced stretching of the knee ligaments.

The ankle weights you saw in the photo album were used as a constant tension on the knees. But it was also necessary to apply more painful stretching pressure using my hands as the pulling force.

The measurements I am giving you are reasonably but not necessarily scientifically accurate. Also, as a form of personal encouragement I always took the measurements after a session of stretching. Better for the morale!

I recently played tennis with Terry Salo, another one of your success stories and I know he would want me to extend his greetings and heartfelt thanks.

Date Left KneeRight Knee
August 2, 2007 115105
August 16 118108
Sept. 2 123 112
Oct. 8 128 118
Nov. 14 130 120
Dec. 25 132 124
Jan. 31, 2008 132 126
March 12 135 128
April 18 138 132
May 21 140 135
July 14 144 143

I am currently around 130' for both knees.

Taking measurements of the original knee photos I had sent you it looks like my left knee had 106' and the right knee 92'. Upon returning to Canada I did go to a therapist who said that the exercises I was doing were what he would have recommended. Also, he said that 2' more range of motion a month was probably all I could hope to accomplish.

Thank you and all the best from John and Rosa.