My neighbour's new knee clicks every time he takes the stairs. Is clicking normal after a knee replacement or has his gone wrong?

Bit of a sideways one. Ten years of two bad knees and I'm edging towards the conversation about the right one, finally. My neighbour had his replaced in the spring and he's delighted with it, walking further than me already. But it CLICKS. Properly audible. We were going up the stairs to his flat on Sunday and it went tick, tick, tick like a clock, every step.

He laughs it off. I couldn't stop thinking about it on the way home. Is that what a new knee sounds like? Or has something come loose and he's too cheerful to notice? Because if that's standard issue I'd quite like to know before I sign, and if it's not then I'd like to tell him to get it looked at without frightening the life out of him.

I can answer from the clicking side. Left knee replaced in February, and mine started clicking about week four, on the stairs and when I straighten it getting out of the car. I rang the ward about it, felt a fool, and the nurse said it's the new joint's surfaces meeting and very common while the muscles are still weak. Eight months on it's quieter. Still there now and then. It has never once hurt and the knee is the best it's been in years.

I've joined up mainly to say that, because I'd have liked someone to say it to me in March.

Adding to the list of things I'll now be listening for. Is there a difference between a click and a clunk? Asking because my mate at the golf club says his "clunks" when he stands up and I've no idea if that's the same thing in a bigger voice.

petef58 said:

Is that what a new knee sounds like?

Pete, quite often, yes. Mine ticks on the stairs too, and it has done since about week three. I spent one evening convinced I could hear it coming apart and was too embarrassed to ring anyone about a noise. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says most people feel or hear some clicking of the metal and plastic when they bend the knee or walk, and that this is normal. Gordon's nurse gave him the right explanation: early on the muscles and soft tissues around the joint are weak and slack, the surfaces meet with a tick, and as strength comes back it usually gets quieter. A painless click doesn't mean the knee is loose or wearing out faster.

The things that do make a noise worth a phone call are its companions: pain with it, new swelling or warmth, the knee catching or locking, the knee giving way, or a new grinding or clunking noise years after the operation in a knee that had been quiet. If your neighbour has none of those and is out walking further than you, he's very likely got the ordinary kind. If he's ever unsure, his own team are the ones to ask, not us.

Brian, your golf club friend's clunk when he stands up may be something called patellar clunk, a catch at the front of the knee as it straightens, caused by a small nodule of scar tissue. It's uncommon and treatable, and it's one for his surgeon to look at rather than for us to guess at. I've just put the whole lot together in the new guide on clicking after a knee replacement, and the signs your knee replacement is failing article covers the noises that come with other symptoms.

Ha, the coming apart evening. Glad I wasn't the only one.

Reporting back. Told my neighbour, casually, that apparently clicking is normal unless it hurts or swells. He looked at me like I'd told him the sky was blue and said "I know, they told me at the follow up." So the only person worried about his knee was me.

The more useful outcome is that it's knocked one fear off my list for my own. GP appointment booked to talk about the referral. Two bad knees, ten years. About time.