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 Knee | Right Knee |
---|---|---|
August 2, 2007 | 115 | 105 |
August 16 | 118 | 108 |
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.