Walk out the next day?

[Guest guest]

I was referred to this doctor http://www.drstevehowell.com/meet.cfm who is a

co-founder of Otismed, by someone who was about to have her second knee

replaced by him. She was VERY happy with the first knee, which used the

Otismed, technology with " mini " incision. She was out the next day and

there was no PT - you just use the knee normally and do some standard

exercises. She said the surgery is only 30 minutes. This person traveled

all the way from Oregon to Sacto, CA to have her first knee done by this

doc. She has now had the second knee done and I assume all went well. Who

knows, she may be part of this group!

MY experience, however, was this: I live in the Bay Area, which is about 2

hours from Howell's office. I made an appointment with him for

consultation, and made lots of arrangements (someone to drive me since I was

on pain meds), someone to pick up my daughter at school, cleared the whole

day, etc. His office called and canceled the appt 2 days beforehand -

saying Dr. Howell would be in surgery all day. I was pretty put out seeing

as I had made all these arrangements. Why would they make an appt when he

was in surgery? So I made another appointment, asked for assurance that it

wouldn't be canceled, and again, made all the arrangements. AGAIN, they

called 2 days before and canceled, saying he was doing surgery. Well, of

course the guy is a surgeon, but at that point I felt it would be stupid to

make another try at an appointment.

Instead, I went to see Dr. Dearborn

http://www.johntdearbornmd.com/index.html in Fremont, which is about 30

minutes from my home. He agreed to do both my knees using the " less

invasive " technique probably with the Zimmer. He has done over 1200 of

these surgeries since Feb 2004.

I have been told to get 2 more opinions and am doing that, but in the mean

time, I have come to see that the otismed technology is a bit new and there

may be an advantage to getting the tried-and-true method and let others be

guinea pigs for the otis technique! BTW, anyone out there who has had

Otisknee?

Callahan Goodman

Dr. Coon, Red Bluff, CA, does this with Zimmer knee, quad

sparing, MIS. I was told I could downhill ski afterward as long as I

stayed away from black diamond runs.

There are testimonials (and my husband knows a patient) who needed no

assistance after day 3 and really didn't need any PT.

I've been doctor shopping for TKRs on both my knees and I have to

admit, this sounds attractive.

He's done about 4,000 of these, takes him about 35 minutes per

procedure. The process doesn't cut any quad muscles, even over

patella. I guess that's why recovery is so fast.

I'm trying to find any negatives about this procedure, has anyone heard

of it or Dr. Coon?

I've talked to a lot of top docs and have not heard this.

Hollie