AF episode and TKR

[Cally53]

I finally got my TKR on Friday but the wound wouldn't stop bleeding (not a great deal, but enough for surgeon to be concerned), despite being off my rivaroxiban for more than the required amount of time! I was made to keep my knee tightly bent for 4 hours for compression after surgery as he said it would help - it didn't!

2nd day post op and still weeping blood so told to sit with knee bent as much as I could. (So painful). Of course, when one has a knee replacement one should never sit with it bent all of the time, hence I now have one foot twice the size of the other! Dressing changed.

2nd night post op I went into AF, all fun and games as they rarely see it in an orthopaedic ward. Luckily I had already discussed with pharmacist on admission and it was clear in my notes that I should be given access to my flecainide PiP. Nurse on duty had never seen AF before so she flapped a bit. She called orthopaedic doc who had heard of it when he did some training in cardiology. I was told if I was anywhere but NHS hospital I would have been blue lighted out! All done and dusted within the hour but caused a great stir at the time and most probably caused by the stress of the op etc.

3rd day. Doctor decided to change my daily injection to a slow release blood thinner and hoped that would help bleeding. Dressing changed again.

4th day morning. Knee continued to weep blood but did appear to be less and the doctor had to make a decision regarding restarting my rivaroxiban. He went away and thought about it, came back later and drew on dressing and told me not to let anyone touch it and if it hadn't spread too much he would restart medication. Later that afternoon he agreed to put me back on rivaroxiban but another night in hospital to make sure bleeding didn't get worse.

5th day. Thankfully bleeding eased, dressing changed and I finally got the go ahead to be discharged.

Home now with strict instructions of what to do if bleeding restarts.

All in all a very eventful and exhausting 5 nights in hospital, but I'm hoping to put all that behind me now and work on the physio to get a good outcome.

Ablation arranged for when I've recovered - that'll be at least 3 months away though.

[wilsond]

What a carry on! It's really worrying the lack of basic knowledge of AF! Also the management of your situation with bleeding.

I hope your recovery continues well x

[Cally53 in reply to wilsond]

Thank you.

[jeanjeannie50]

That must have been all very worrying for you Cally. Makes my tooth extraction bleeding which bled for hours afterwards look a bit pathetic. Made me concerned though, that was a few years ago.

Get well soon.

Jean

[Cally53 in reply to jeanjeannie50]

Thank you Jean.

[Gowers]

Oh what a difficult recovery you have gone through. Hope you feeling better. What is TKR? I'm thinking knee replacement?

Interesting, as I had steroid injection into knee y.day & consultant waited to see if any bleeding as I'm on Rivaroxaban too. Sounds like you had surgery. Out of interest how long were you off Rivaroxaban for

[Cally53 in reply to Gowers]

Total knee replacement. They say to come off for 48 hours. By the the time I had had surgery I had been off for 72 hours, well over suggested time.

[Hidden]

Im having my knee done sept 5. I was supposed to do it last april but chickened out. My biggest fear is stirring up the a fib monster. I will follow you if you dont mind updating us periodically. I havent had a fib in 15 mo, sure hope I can sneak thru this. Good luck with your recovery!

[Cally53 in reply to Hidden]

I will post re progress Hoski. I regularly get AF, more or less every 10 days, although this latest episode happened after 6. I'm very tired and in some pain today but luckily heart has been behaving well so far.

[Hidden in reply to Cally53]

Thankyou💜. Hope the ticker gets bored and settles down for you.

[Nonam]

How stressful but you have come through it.. good luck for the future thanks for sharing

[DawnTX]

I am so sorry to hear what you went through. I hope it never started again 🙏🏻❤️