I had both knees replaced, the right in 2008 and the left in 2009. I had good results with the right knee but the left knee has been almost constantly problematic. After the initial healing, which took about 11 months, the knee swelled up and became too painful to walk on. I returned to the Core institute for my one year check and saw my surgeon, Dr. David Jacofsky. He was surprised to see me on crutches and immediately removed a large quantity of blood from the left knee with a large hypodermic. He was puzzled as to the cause and asked me to come back if it occurred again. I returned almost every month for the next six months and the last time I was seen by a different doctor, who said it was probably the appliance somehow nicking the knee lining, causing it to bleed into the knee cavity and swelling. He suggested more surgery, removing the knee lining and letting it grow back. Another year of rehab and healing. I opted not to do that and continued to hope it would heal as it should. After a few more episodes and subsequent calls to Core, my doctors PA stopped returning my calls.
The problem seemed to resolve after about 30 months and until last month I had no problem. Then the knee swelled again, seemingly out of the blue. I have no idea what caused it. I'm trying to get an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon here in Washington but they will not see me without my prior surgery and chart notes. So far I have not been able to get the Core institute to forward my surgery notes for that left knee surgery in 2009. They say they cannot "find" them. Seems kind of convenient to me. I've called them eight times and am currently on hold with them.
Be aware that long term customer service does not seem to be a priority for Core. I'm not having much success in that arena.