The OTHER knee is now the bad one. How long did you leave it before having the second replaced, and was it easier the second time?

Two and a half years since my right knee was done and I'd do it again tomorrow. The problem is the left one, which spent all that time doing double duty while I was recovering and has now decided it wants attention. Stairs are back to being a project. I'm doing the thing where I stand at the bottom and calculate.

So, the question for the women who've had both. How long did you leave between them? My surgeon mentioned "when it bothers you enough" and honestly I want a number, even though I know that isn't how it works. Part of me wants it done in the fall while I still have decent weather for walking. Part of me remembers week two and would like to never do week two again.

Also, did the second one go easier? Everyone I've asked in person says yes but I suspect they're being kind. And did anyone regret NOT having both done at once? Nobody offered me that and I never asked.

Four years since mine, left one still original equipment, so I'm no use on the second surgery. But I will say the double duty thing is real. My good knee has done all the work since 2022 and it complains about it.

I had mine fourteen months apart and I'd choose that gap again. By the time I went in for the second, the first knee was strong enough to be the leg I trusted getting out of a chair and going up stairs, which made the whole recovery less frightening. When you have one new knee and one bad one, the new one has to be your good leg, and that takes the best part of a year.

Was it easier? Different, not easier. The surgery and the swelling were the same. What changed was me. I knew what week two was, I knew the ice routine, I had the raised toilet seat still in the garage, and I stopped panicking every time it felt wrong. That knowledge is worth a lot. I still cried on day four both times.

Carol in Rockford said:

My surgeon mentioned "when it bothers you enough" and honestly I want a number, even though I know that isn't how it works.

The short answer is that there is no fixed waiting period between a first and second knee, and the timing is driven by the second knee's symptoms and by your recovery from the first, not by the calendar. In practice, most surgeons want the first knee to be a reliable working leg before they operate on the other one, because it has to carry you through the second rehab. That is usually somewhere in the range of three months to a year, and many women, like Sue, end up around the one-year mark simply because that is when the second knee has become the loud one.

On the wider choices, the vocabulary is worth having. Doing both in one operation is called simultaneous bilateral replacement; doing them in two operations is staged. Staged is by far the more common approach, and simultaneous is offered selectively, because it means one anaesthetic and one rehab but a bigger physiological hit, more blood loss, a higher transfusion rate, and a harder early recovery with no strong leg to lean on. Candidates tend to be younger, fitter patients without significant heart or lung disease, and plenty of units do not offer it at all. If nobody offered it to you, that is a common and defensible position rather than an oversight, though it is a fair question to put to your surgeon.

The reason your surgeon says "when it bothers you enough" is that knee replacement remains an elective, quality-of-life operation: it is indicated when symptoms are severe and persistent and conservative care has stopped working, not when an X-ray reaches a certain grade. Our article on signs it's time for a knee replacement sets out the pattern that usually tips the decision. Whether autumn is the right slot for you is a question for the surgeon who knows your left knee, but I will say that the practical arguments (weather for walking, help at home, nothing important in the diary for six weeks) are legitimate, not frivolous, and surgeons hear them all the time.

One correction to a common belief, since it comes up in almost every version of this conversation: the second knee does not routinely recover faster because the body has "learned" anything. What genuinely improves is your preparation, your expectations, and your confidence, which is a real advantage and worth naming honestly.

Mine were eight months apart and the second was harder, not easier, because I got a stiff knee and needed a lot more physio to get the bend back. So I'm the counterexample. Still glad I did it, still would say do it, just don't go in assuming the second is the easy one because you've done it once.

Reading this as a woman with one new knee and one that has started making noises about its own retirement. Bookmarking the whole thread.

Update from the woman who wanted a number and got a range. Saw my surgeon last week. He watched me on the stairs, looked at the new X-ray, and the words were "your left knee has caught up with where your right was." So it's booked for late October.

Patty, your post did more for me than the reassuring ones, honestly. I've stopped telling myself it'll be easier and started planning it as if it's the first one, with the physio lined up before rather than after. Sue's point about the first knee being the leg you trust is exactly what I've got now, which I didn't have last time.

Ask me in December whether the fall weather plan was clever or delusional.