Knee Surgery in Malaysia UPDATE Medical Tourism for Early Retired Travelers

in this week's video we're going to give you an update about my knee surgery because about once a week we get a request about how what's happened with you what's happened with your knee so we're just going to take a quick moment and give you an update about my knee yay so if you recall you can watch our video up here but if you recall I've had ongoing knee problems my whole life my right knee was just deteriorating when we were in England when we first launched I stepped off a curb and it popped and from there it was just downhill so we did a bunch of research and we thought about where I could get some me surgery um we were told I was told a couple times that in Mexico I was told and in Europe I was told that the hydronic acid and cortisone shots that I was getting were not going to work anymore and I need to get a more permanent solution so that sent us on a trail to research about where I could get knee surgery yeah and so I'm going to be asking her some questions so I can be involved in this video video in a little bit and maybe interjecting a little bit uh here and there in my perspective but uh what who are we we are Chris and Steve ew walk learn we are full-time Travelers we've been traveling the globe since May of 2021 right we sold our we sold our house in Denver packed everything up what was left of it which was the only things that fit in our carryon suitcase sold our car sold our house and we've been on the road ever since that's right anyway that's right yeah yeah so wait so you talk a little bit about your um you know what they did that the the hydronic acid cortisone shots or whatever but what what was the diagnosis what what did they tell you you you had and need to be fixed right so by the time so after all the research we got to koala lumur Malaysia and I saw three orthopedic surgeons there and got three different opinions the consistency in the opinions was my Meniscus was all a mess I had uh no cartilage left at all in my knee I was bone on bone in my knee and I had all kinds of damage behind my patella behind my kneecap and so basically just this was just the um the right knee yeah my right knee and basically it was just a meat grinder without any meat in it so um I originally thought I was going to need an entire full knee replacement and at the time I was 55 was 55 at the surgery and 56 a couple days after the surgery and all the doctors were really hesitant to fully replace my knee because I don't really like to do it when you're that young because how long did they say a a knee replacement lasts yeah like 15 10 to 15 years so they didn't want to see me at age 70 and getting a new knee so they were really reluctant on the other hand I needed to do something so uh the doctor I decided to use and all of his information is in the description and also in the video um was a doctor at the pentai hospital in koala lumur Malaysia he had something different to say he wanted to do orthoscopic surgery and do stem cell replacement and this seemed like after lots of research and and we actually went to the lab and looked at the stem cell uh results at the lab and all the efficacy from the donor on my stem cells and so on I felt confident that this was the right decision for me so yeah and from my perspective too it seemed like the not the not a perfect solution because there really isn't a perfect solution because again a new knee would only last 10 or 15 years um what did they tell you how long this step cell if it if you had a perfect recovery from the stem cell treatment how long that would last yeah they said at 5 to 10 years it's there's really not a lot of longevity on this type of surgery results so they really he said 5 years maybe 10 years it could be longer but a good 5 years and I thought well if I could at least buy myself 5 years without having to get a full knee replacement that might be the right solution for me and the reason why we went to Malaysia is because we were looking at I looked at at these options in the US and even with insurance and even if I could find a doctor number one there's no stem cell replacement therapy for knees yet in the US there is some some stem cell stuff but not for knees and no knee doctors would replace my knee in the US and even if I could find somebody and my insurance did cover it it would still cost probably about $25,000 out of pocket Al with PT and everything all combined with insurance I'm sorry $25,000 with insurance in the US and I thought there's got to be a better way so we'll cut to the chase it was $110,000 total for everything I'm going to tell you that I did in Malaysia and that's also in the in this video here you can watch about yeah so what so when exactly was this because right I had surgery in December of 2022 and then I had so in in the surgery the orth it was orthoscopic surgery he went and cleaned up everything and then gave me my first injection of stem cells which was the infrastructure stem cells those are the stem cells they install uh to to create Scaffolding in my knee and then in January they went and I got an injection of my actual stem cells that went into the infrastructure cells yeah so it's about a year later and I you know I remember that that period uh very well I remember us getting an Airbnb and making sure that there was not going to be any stairs that you need to step up or step down in order to get to into our apartment and also you know you didn't have to like step into a bathtub or anything like that like everything was you know was could be very easy for you but um what so during that time and since that time like what's the pain um like pain threshold yeah that's a good question and by the way you did a good job on the Airbnb so thank you for taking care of me for doing that um so and when you got the Airbnb we were thinking I was going to have a full knee replacement and so the bendability and Mobility was going to be less anyway after the surgery I was very mobile uh for probably a week or so I was on pain meds and sore but not really in pain just kind of awkward learning how to to get some Mobility back in my knee then I started PT and then in January when I got the uh stem cells injected that was probably the most painful day of it all the actual injection of the stem cells and then my body reacting to oh my God there's all this weird stuff in it my body was just like ah pain but pain meds to care of that and then um I really have not had any pain to speak of that I mean maybe an aspirin might have been necessary or some ibuprofen or something every once in a while but in general there's been no pain yeah yeah you know and and I've been um you know when you have had pain or some discomfort um you know I certainly the one that that hears about it first and you know we're we travel full-time and so this we're talking about about 14 months ago yeah that uh that that you had this uh this surgery done and it feels like there have been some times but recently um it like you haven't had didn't seem like any symptoms like you know way like from 10 years ago because you had a lot of pain before you had the operation because your knee would needed to be replaced um you know and so there was that bone on bone there was certainly a lot of pain there and a lot offort there yeah I guess there's been pain but not at all like what I had before the surgery so I guess I kind of In My Memory yeah I'm having some pain but it's not it's not anything I'm really remembering or having to react to like sometimes in bed at night um on my stomach I'm laying on my stomach and my my leg is fully extended I might have a little pain then at night sleeping or I it's more discomfort than it is pain but it's always whatever it is it's always better than what it was before and you've had um a few different instances where you used uh physical therapy and um and and that's one of those is you know we said you know what I can't I there still have some swelling I can't get my knee my leg completely straight I need to get some PT right kind of get kind of walk through what that yeah so I had some PT in qualum per right after the the surgery okay champ Physical Therapy time so we we were in qualum per for a month after the surgery had PT at the local hospital and then they gave me some exercises to do on my home at home alone and in a pool which I did and then I kind of didn't do any PT for a while shame on me and then when we got back to the stat so this was uh like 6 months later right um I I found a PT guy in physical therapy guy in Seattle and he came to my house a couple times and he showed me some really complicated exercises that I found just super difficult to do you're exercising and I because they were difficult I had a tough time doing them and so I wasn't a really good PT patient and so then I just kind of decided that um I actually called um my doctor we did a virtual call and I explained what was going on and he said you know basically the cuz I was a little bit frustrated with my mobility and my range of motion and he said basically you're right on track and you're healing so I was I think my expectations were a little bit high for for my timeline on my over overall healing and Mobility so after that conversation with him I realized that um I was right on track and that I needed to just kind of focus myself on doing lunges and getting up to doing SS and continuing with the hiking and the walking that we're doing and then um we'll I think we're going in a minute talk about where I am now but I just kind of had to a little bit own my as you always do you have to own your responsibility to your healing and then really kind of listen to my body on what I needed to do rather than have someone the PT guys weren't telling they were telling me what to do but it wasn't really working for me and so I kind of rebalanced in my head like all right this is what I want to do these are my goals I looked a little bit on Facebook about some exercises to do and then kind of figured out what was working for me and did my own thing yeah yeah I think it's it's it's interesting because you you essentially have you know all your your parts what part of my part is your part that you originally had I mean compared to a knee replacement where they literally you know cut the bone and put in you know artificial you know Parts on in you and then you need to recover from that from that uh from that bone being you know replaced with with parts but the parts are artificial in your knee socket in this case the um like a regrowth of the cartilage in your knee yeah IW the takes time right right exactly so the so it took about I think I mean I haven't had any MRIs it would be interesting to get an MRI now but it basically took a year for all that cartilage to regrow and for my knee to figure out how to work work again with the new parts and the new shapes and so on because they he reshaped my femur and he re shaped my tibula so so everything was a new shape and so on and so then the cartilage had to grow in so the whole thing kind of had to figure out how to mesh together and be its knee on its own yeah yeah so what so let's kind of we talked about how you know we're full-time Travelers but like what is our day-to-day what's our lifestyle look like for for somebody with with knee after knee surgery yeah so uh you we've always been big Walkers so even before surgery we were walking about 10 to 15,000 steps a day and after surgery of course that slowed down a little bit still even to this day we do 10 to 15,000 steps a day so that's a normal everyday I think we both have 11 12,000 step goals or something every day that we do every day and a lot of places that's really easy in our lifestyle if we're downtown or we have to walk to the market or we don't have a car or a bus I mean we're hitting those numbers easy sometimes it takes us a little effort in order to get those numbers in but and then we also do a lot of hiking we play pickle ball we work out we exercise we ride bikes and so there's I actually do now more I do more now than what I did before I had my knee surgery just because my knee doesn't hurt anymore yeah even just today we've we've already put in about 10,000 steps and it's still you know in the middle of the day but we also went for a long bike ride right um and part of that was um playing disc golf which is where you're using your muscles and using your body and again an even different way than just than just walking so so we're pretty active yeah and um and I and I think that that you you've been doing great so any any regrets anything that you like to see different well back in April so I had the stem cells in January and then April we went on that big hike in Japan we went went into the K Koto kimono or Kon kimono Coto which you can see the video here which is a big major very difficult hike that we did in Japan that you know was straight up and straight down and I had polls or right one pole and I my ego was like oh we can do this I have a brand new knee no problem let's go do it but the the truth was I had a ton of atrophy which I didn't expect from the surgery causes atrophy and then of course not using the leg caused atrophy too so I had a ton of atrophy and I kind of overlooked it and when we were on the trail I was not good and it was raining and it was miserable conditions so all that together I was not a good trail mate it was not my best day yeah and you were so good you were you were so nice but you know it and you know she says that she wasn't wasn't good but it was hard for me and she was like she was like I need to take a break I think I I don't think I could do anymore and I'm like oh thank you this is a hard this was a hard yeah and honestly I should not have done that hike I mean when I think about other hikes I've done with other friends in Denver and stuff and I had people that would come along that were on the hike that really should not have been on the hike and we all you know we always accommodate for people and everybody's always welcome but I would think about I there's some people in my mind that I thought you shouldn't have come with this you shouldn't have been on this hike and I was that person when we were in Japan so anyway so that was in that was in April since then we are are absolutely back into hiking and um my and so then I did I also did a series of exercises I would get on YouTube and do aerobic exercises and strength building exercises just body weight strength building exercises on YouTube just to get my fitness back and my fitness was certainly had dropped I mean it was dropping from the knee the original knee pain and then not being able to anyway it was my fit we were always fit but my fitness was definitely worse than what what has been so with you with the help of some videos on YouTube I was able to get my fitness back and then I feel like um like I'm finally back like a year late what it's 13 14 months later I feel like I'm truly back and healed because I'm now working out again at f45 which for me is like my litm Miss test if I can do an f45 workout I'm in pretty good shape granted I'm not doing as good as I used to do my weights are less and stuff but I'll get there yeah if you haven't done f45 it's a high-intensity workout it's it's 45 minutes of just pretty much like one thing to the next with like 10c intervals of rest with between it's it's a tough workout and uh when you're done you you you feel it and it sounds like a success yeah and the fact that I can do I mean I now I have some goals at f45 to get you know get the weights up and get the repetitions up and my speed up but I I I'm I I'm I'm back I feel like I'm back so for those of you who are thinking about knee surgery or your choices with knee pain you know we're not doctors we're not going to recommend anything for you you certainly have to go through your own Avenue for where you want to go but for me and for us at what 13 14 months after my original orthopedic surgery orthoscopic surgery in koala lur and then 13 months after my stem cell injections I absolutely feel like my knee is maybe 90% my right knee is maybe 90% of my left knee my my right knee is never going to be as good as my left knee because it's not my natural knee um I I don't think we'll see um but I definitely feel like I've got a knee that's going to carry me for a good four or five years we'll we'll find out obviously we'll let you know but for all of you who have been asking best decision ever I would do it again in a heartbeat I would recommend my doctor again I would recommend the procedure I had again and I absolutely have no regrets but you no regrets that's my that's my middle name if you have any questions write them below we we're glad to answer any thank you for following thank you for asking and worried about my Healthcare or asking about my healthare I mean we're full Believers in medical care around the world we've had lots of positive experiences we're going to show a video here of other medical care that we've had in case you're thinking about getting your teeth fixed or getting your feet fixed we've done those two so we'll talk to you later

Channel: Nomad Life. Full-time Travel (Eat Walk Learn)

Views: 9,222

Keywords: stem cell, medical tourism, malaysia, orthoscopic surgery, miniscus, knee pain, knee surgery, acl, acl tear, doctors in malaysia, malaysia medicine, stem cell therapy, what are stem cells, knee replacement surgery, do i need a new knee, knee replacement alternatives, knee alternative, nomad life, nomadlife, fulltime travel, travel, couple travel, how to find a doctor abroad, how to get knee surgery abroad, stem cell trials, chondrogen stem cells, osteoarthritis

Id: F7rPo2zSCeg

Length: 16min 58sec (1018 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 22 2024