Total Knee Replacement

Really sorry to hear the terrible news Nick. To echo what's already been said it's just ridiculous that they don't either test for possible reactions beforehand and/or use a material which is less likely to give a reaction.

I know that this sucks big time, but try to remember that your original reasoning for getting the replacement was to give yourself more trail time while still young. Although having to go through the surgery and rehab a second time totally sucks, your original line of reasoning will still hold true. Going through this now (even twice) will surely better position you to get in the most trail time when looking at the big picture.
 
steve said:
look on the bright side, at least you didn't do TWO knees with allergic implants!
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Seriously! I read some total horror stories online about other people's experiences being allergic. One lady got both done at the same time and nearly died from it. Today I went and finally got to see my surgeon who has been out of the country. He told me that there have been cases specific to cobalt allergy where a woman had such bad heart problems from it that she ended up with a heart transplant that subsequently failed. And THEN they figured out she was allergic to her knee implants! I just can't even imagine. My case is nothing compared to that. It was good to talk to the man himself today. He was horrified looking at my skin reactions. Once again like 5 doctors had to come see and take photos. They've never seen anything like it. He took it very seriously and didn't hesitate to bump things around to get me scheduled for re-replacement the moment my patch testing is done. I'm tentatively going in around the 11th or 12th for the new, new knee. Just gotta make sure titanium is my friend first. And hey, I guess this adds to my backpacker cred, right? I had a heavy stainless steel knee, but now I'm upgrading to an ultralight titanium one! :)
 
I cannot imagine the disappointment you are feeling. I have experienced doc's messing things up before (they are human after all), but never to this extent. My thoughts are with you.
I think you need a catered, beer drenched river trip.
g
 
Nick sorry to hear this.
I wrote you before your surgery in favor of getting the total done. I have seen two reactions to hip replacements but they seemed so rare I didn't mention it. Sorry. Shitty stuff.
I hope all goes well.
Jack
 
Oh man, crazy news today. Two weeks ago I had multiple doctors tell me it wasn't a question of if I was allergic to my implant, but which metal in particular. Today I was told I have no metal allergies. VERY good news. This means no second knee surgery.

If anyone is curious, here's the operating theory on what the problem was. Warning, it's kinda gross.

Over the last week I've been doing patch and prick testing to figure out the problem. They narrowed it down to about 8 compounds that I'm allergic to. Some common stuff found in lots of soaps, shampoos, lotions, etc. and another found in antibiotic ointments like neosporin. Based on that info, the theory is this: After surgery my incision wasn't healing up well. I started putting neosporin on it to help it. Rash and dry skin developed over my knee and it just generally looked and felt like crap, so I started putting Aquaphor on it. I hadn't really used it in the past but it's supposed to be pretty innocuous. Soon the rash and eczema worsened and started spreading to the rest of my body. Intense itching everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Eventually a huge solid red/purple rash formed right over my knee implant and fluid started basically pouring out. I could soak a hand towel in less than an hour, easy. It was disgusting. That's when I started getting it looked at and the diagnosis of metal allergy was made by my surgeon and dermatologist (a metal allergy specialist). But in retrospect, now that we know I'm allergic to neosporin and aquaphor, it's pretty clear I had just been doing everything wrong. Aggravating one reaction with a product that gave a worse reaction and then doing it more and more and more. I thought I'd narrowed down everything. Every food, every pill. I had no idea Neosporin and/or Aquaphor could ever do something like this. Oh, and then I got a secondary skin infection because of all that. Problems upon problems. I have to go fragrance free now and avoid 99% of personal products. They gave me a list of things that are okay and were proud to tell me that one of the shampoos might actually be available in local stores. Haha! Still better than knee surgery x2 though!

Anyway, it seems to be solved now. I finally get to start a seriously huge dose of steroid that will hopefully make it stop. I haven't used either offending product in a couple weeks now but I'm still in pretty bad shape. Maybe it's from the soaps, etc. Doc says that the steroids will have me 'whistling dixie' in a few days. He and the ortho doc feel that the overall crappy heeling in my knee was also affected by this and that there is a good chance I will feel awesome once it gets cleared up. I hope I can report back here in a month or so that I finally don't regret getting my knee replaced. Fingers crossed.
 
I had invasive thoracic surgery back in the day. The doc advised me not to use anything on the nasty incision. Products like Neosporin can cause a lot of problems, like providing a medium for bacterial growth.

That's great that they found a solution not involving another surgery.
 
That's great news Nick! Just imagine the horror if it was discovered after the SECOND replacement that it was the neosporin. Time to start planning some adventures.
 
Woot! That's about the best news we could have hoped for. Congrats! I agree with the doc about steroids. I once had poison oak get into my bloodstream and they gave me some steroids to clear it up, and I've never felt that good in my life up to that point or since. Blue skies ahead.
 
Any updates? Are you healing quicker now that you're not putting poison on your knee?
 
steve said:
Any updates? Are you healing quicker now that you're not putting poison on your knee?
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Yeah...are you whistling dixie yet? =)

Interesting about the neosporin. 3 people I know recently had stitches and each time they gave them dual action antibiotic cream claiming that a lot of people are allergic to the 3rd antibiotic in triple creams.

Thumbs up on the news!
 
A LOT better already! Skin is still pretty messed up though. It feels kind of like healing from serious burns but at lest I'm not scratching my skin off anymore. Already feeling like I could knock out some miles though. I just need to build strength back up and hopefully the healing keeps pace. I think I'll be backpacking very soon. :)
 
Crazy stuff man. I was told not to put neosporin on when I had a skin biopsy done lately. The doctor said about 10% of people will develop a reaction to it after a few days.
 
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