Colin came round to see me this morning, after which I headed off for my first physio appointment with the local NHS Practice in Banchory. I could tell immediately that she wasn't too impressed - particularly with the lack of knee bend I have. She measured it at roughly 50° and said that normally they wouldn't release folk from hospital until they had at least 70°. I seem to recall that the physio at Albyn had said I was virtually at 70° - although it didn't seem that much to me at the time.
The Banchory physio understood that the swelling was restricting my movement and said that I should ditch the cool water knee collar that the surgeon preferred and instead revert to the good old-fashioned frozen peas treatment.
I have to do my exercises every day half an hour after taking my meds - that way I should be able to force more bend in my knee, which seemed to be causing her some concern. She thought that, 11 days after the op, I should have a lot more flex by now. She suggested sitting on the side of the bed (or a suitable chair) and pushing the right leg back using the left ankle and heel to force it. (This was what Scott had said too). She warned it would be very painful but I needed to get on with it - now.
An alternative way of doing it would be lying in bed and using the wall instead:
She also said that, as an alternative to using the sliding board that the hospital had shown me to slide my knee up and down, the same effect could be achieved in bed by using a cheap supermarket plastic bag on my heel.
She wasn't too impressed either with the shaped handles on the walking sticks I had got at Albyn and asked me to try out more conventional curved handles - and she was right.
On reflection, I'm glad I arranged this NHS appointment. If I hadn't, it would have been another week before I went back to see the Albyn physio.
I have arranged 2 more appointments with the NHS physio next Tuesday and Friday.
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