John and I were running a few errands yesterday when I noted with a great deal of satisfaction that I was walking with considerably less pain these days. But I also have noticed that the mechanics of putting one foot in front of each other just feels different. I have great range of motion and can bear weight on my new knee, but I feel clumsy and unsure where to put the foot on my operative side. If I stroll along and pay little attention to my stride, I find that I feel most comfortable placing my feet close together with my right foot turned outward a bit.
I'm thinking that this is not a very stable way to walk. I'll bet it would be really easy to tip over from such a narrow stance.
So I've been trying to concentrate on placing my feet a bit further apart as I walk and to try to square my pelvis straight ahead and to distribute my weight evenly between my two legs.
I'm going to make a point of talking to my physical therapists about this over the next few weeks of therapy.
I decided that I couldn't wait until Friday for answers to questions such as, "Why am I walking strangely since my surgery?" I Googled madly using "gait changes after unilateral total knee arthroplasty" in the search box and realized that I wasn't as special or unusual as I had thought in that this is a common situation post total knee replacement. Go ahead - try searching on this yourself. You'll bring up hundreds of studies and documents. Whew.
Lulu thinks that any time I stick a foot out it means that she gets her hinder scratched. Which could be a significant hazard to safe walking, come to think about it. She lurks on the sofa all snuggly in my new favorite throw, then leaps out and places her little self strategically whenever anyone's shoe is approximately Schnauzer butt height in the general vicinity. What a dog.
And she gets cranky if the scratcher doesn't keep the scratching up for a lengthy period of time.
Aw, heck. maybe I should quit thinking about the whole thing and just follow The Bangle's suggestion. Can YOU walk like an Egyptian?
3 comments:
Any thoughts on a tie between auto immune diseases and birth control pills? Or the possibility of getting Sjogrens after changing birth control pills?
Also any tips for someone with Sjogrens who because of their anxiety can not sleep. I'm struggling. How can I get the amount of sleep/rest someone with an auto immune disease requires if my anxiety won't let me nod off. It's like my body is afraid that if I fall asleep I'll die - so it wakes me up with a fright every time I get close to drifting off. Dr has put me on Zoloft but I've only been on it for a few days so far. What do I do?
After each of the hips and the knee replacement I found there was a sort of disconnect between the head and the leg. As tho I had to think about where I wanted my feet to go instead of just stepping out. With time and lots of walking it passed or else I simply adjusted to it and don't notice it so much anymore.
Looks like you're healing well. Get lots of rest and keep at it.
Lulu looks very cozy, indeed.
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