Richard Calthorpe

How long did you experience pain before you went to see your GP?
Over the years I’ve had more and more problems with my right knee.  It was getting to the point where I could barely walk with it. There was no way I could have lasted another 10 years in the condition that I was in. So Mr Keys suggested that the only way forward was to have an Oxford^® knee. And obviously if you have an Oxford^® knee then there’s always a possibility, or the opportunity in the future if needed you can have a total knee because they only last about 10 or 12 years apparently which is why most people are a lot older when they have them done.  Each time I went back to see Mr Keys and he x-rayed it, the gap between my knees, or the joints, was getting less and less so there was literally, well there was no cartilage there at the end which is why it was so painful.  But it’s only on the inside of my knees the outside of my knees are fine, on both knees.  So they were definitely the right operation for me.  So I’m just hoping that they’re going to carry on for another 20, 30 years, at least!

What were you unable to do because of the pain?
Quite a lot really.  I used to do quite a lot of walking, well I couldn’t do much of that at all and it got to the stage where I couldn’t even walk the dog around the block.  I’m a printer I’m on my feet all day and operating machines, and it was starting to affect my job.  So it was something that had to be fixed really and the quality, my quality of life, well, it was a lot less than it should have been for somebody my age really, particularly as there was an option there to sort it out.

What did your GP say when you went to see him?
Well I asked him, I need to see a specialist about this because this is going on for quite a while and I just said, who would you recommend?  He said a friend of his had just had a knee replacement and the chap that did it was Graham Keys, and he said, he’s absolutely fine now.  And he would thoroughly recommend him so I said right, that’s good enough for me.  And met Mr Keys, really nice chap. He explained everything in detail of what it was all about, showed me how the joint works and what they would do, just made it all very easy to understand really.  So I was really positive about having it done.  So, and the way Mr Keys explained it all, just sort of put my mind at rest that it was the right thing to do.  I was confident, he said he’d done quite a lot of these and really confident that he could do it and it would be right when he was done.  And he was right!

Did your surgeon explain the difference between a partial knee and a total knee to you?
Yes he did.  As the outside of my knee was ok cartilage wise, it was normal, it was the inside of the knee that was badly damaged, there’s no cartilage there and that’s where all the pain was coming from, so there was really no reason to replace the other side of my knee as well as we’ve got an option to replace the inside only.  He said you’ll get an awful lot more life out of an Oxford^® knee than you would a full knee, and then you’ve always got the option in the future if you needed to, you could have a total knee afterwards.  So I thought it was a great idea.

What can you do now that you couldn’t do before?
Well, I can walk the dog around the block.  We go walking in Lyme park quite a lot, I cycle, swim, I couldn’t do most of those before I had it done, so it’s just given me a normal life again really, from having more of a disabled life before, so, as far as the knees go they’re just normal knees now.

Did you know anything about partial knee replacement before you went to see the surgeon?
No I didn’t know anything about that until I saw Mr Keys.  He explained it all, the benefits of having an Oxford^® knee as against a total knee obviously depending on the problem with your knee, and the way he explained it and how it was right for me, it all made a lot of sense, and, I just felt confident that what he was suggesting was the right thing to do. And having had it done now, it definitely was.

If you have an Oxford^® knee, it’s only half the knee and you know if it lasts for 10, 15, 20 years and then in future you need to have a full knee then you can have that done.  But obviously if you have a full knee now you’ve got the restrictions of what you can have done in the future.  So, it was, there was no question to answer really for me, the Oxford^® knee was the right thing to have done.

How satisfied are you with your knees?
Well, I’m 100%, 100% satisfied.  I haven’t got any problems or reservations, or regrets that I would have had if things hadn’t gone as well as they have done because they’ve gone very well, I couldn’t have asked for anything better really. So yes I’ve no problems in recommending it.

Would you have done anything differently?
No I don’t think there were any other options open to me that would have given me the quality of life that I’ve got now. This was the right procedure for me, and I’m really pleased that I’ve had them both done and I would recommend them to anybody who’s in the same situation as I am.
 

These interviews have been conducted and are being published upon obtaining patient and surgeon consent for this purpose

If you are a patient reading this story, please bear in mind that it is one individual person’s health story that is being presented here.  Whether this surgery would also be possible in your circumstances, and whether results could be similar, depends entirely on your doctor’s evaluation, your personal health situation, age, fitness, weight and a number of other circumstances.  Please also bear in mind that having surgery is always associated with risk and that you must take time to recover; in particular, the success of a surgery depends to no small extent on your own commitment to physical therapy following surgery.