Note: Once again, this is only my personal experience. Everyone has a different healing trajectory; for every person you heard of who climbed Mt. Everest the day after surgery, there is someone still in a walker after a month (me; that was me) and still having issues months afterward. Do not take my surgery/recovery story as gospel for how your experience will go. Even my experiences between the two surgeries were vastly different. Talk to your own doctor/surgeon/physical therapist to determine what you need to do for YOUR best outcome.
I had my right knee replaced (RTKR) in June 2026. My first surgery on my left knee went pretty well; I’d say, from talking to other people, that it was maybe a bit better than average (helped in no small part by the fact that I am incredibly lucky to have a high pain tolerance). My left knee felt great, but I was unbalanced. If you’ve read the page about my first surgery, you’ll recall that I had a 10 degree bend in my knees; once the left knee was replaced, my leg was straight and an inch longer than the right. My right knee had become my “good” knee while recovering from my LTKR, and the strain had worn it down. I was still restricted in what I could do; that poor right leg still held me back, although the left felt great.
So at my 6 week checkup for my left knee, I spoke to my surgeon about getting my right knee done. His personal preference is that he will do the surgeries as close as 3 months apart (assuming of course that you recover well from the first one). However, I knew I would need to depend on my daughters more this time—being my right knee, I knew I wouldn’t be able to drive for at least 6 weeks, and I would need rides to physical therapy. Plus, not knowing if this recovery would be better/worse/the same as the last, I would need them to be on call if I found myself unable to do daily tasks, etc. I checked with them regarding vacations, out of town work trips, etc. and found the sweet spot of having both of them near me to be a late June/early July surgery—about 6 months after the first.
Because I didn’t get great flexion in my left knee, the surgeon decided on a different type of implant and used a different procedure that involved less cutting for my right knee. And it wasn’t just the implant and procedure that were different this time: my surgeon went to a “quiet knee” protocol where I didn’t go to in-person physical therapy until 2 weeks post op, and only did easy, gentle exercises in the meantime. And things went differently in the OR too!
This time, for my RTKR, I wasn’t out yet when they did the spinal (I was mildly sedated, but I was awake). After the injection, I could literally feel it going down my legs. I was still awake when they scooted me over to the operating table and put my leg up in a sling to begin prepping. Then another IV push and I was out.
Also different from the previous surgery was my recovery time in post-op. I still couldn’t feel my legs/wiggle my toes when I first woke up; in fact, that took probably an hour or more to come back. Looking back on the immediate pain in post-op with the previous surgery, and the fact that I was out cold when they did the spinal, my guess is that they biffed the first one. Once I was able to wiggle my toes, the Physical Therapy team came in and had me do some exercises on the table (the easy, gentle ones to do at home for the next 2 weeks) and the difference between the procedures was immediately apparent. The flexibility in my right knee was WAY better than my left. Then they had me use the walker to go up and down one step (because there is a small step up from my porch to go through the front door) and of course the “restroom walk of fame” (because of the spinal, they want to see that you can pee OK before sending you home).
Because the spinal took longer to wear off this time, I didn’t get home until between 5–6 pm (surgery was 10 am). But just as with my previous surgery, I was able to take care of myself and my pets immediately. Now that I had TWO good knees, I only used the walker for a few weeks, then a cane for maybe about another week. I greatly appreciated my daughters driving me to physical therapy, but after the first month, I was able to walk and let them off the hook (the PT place is 1/3 mile from my house, no busy streets to cross). After 6 weeks, I was cleared to drive.
I am now able to stand in line with little to no discomfort; walk for an hour at a time; and most importantly, do things with/for my family that I had been unable to do before.