Over the years, Thomas Albright, DPM, podiatrist, UPMC in North Central Pa., sent several patients to orthopaedic surgeon Kyle Hubler, DO.
So, when Dr. Albright knew he needed his knees replaced, he also knew exactly where to go.
Struggling with chronic knee pain due to osteoarthritis, Dr. Albright visited Dr. Hubler for a consultation. In March 2025, Dr. Hubler performed a double-knee replacement on Dr. Albright at UPMC Williamsport.
Ten months after surgery, Dr. Albright is pain-free. He’s back to doing what he enjoys most, including hunting, traveling, and going on walks with his wife.
“It’s a huge difference,” says Dr. Albright, 57. “I don’t have pain, and I’m able to walk for exercise. I’m not a jogger or anything, but we walk fast and for several miles.”
Increasing Knee Pain
Dr. Albright’s knee issues date back to a football injury in high school. He had undergone knee surgery and lived without major problems for nearly three decades.
But over the past 10 years, he’d torn his right meniscus twice and his left meniscus once. He’d had arthroscopic surgery on both knees — twice on the right, once on the left.
He’d dealt with increasing pain in both knees, which started to affect his quality of life. It particularly affected him during hunting, one of his favorite hobbies.
“I’m an avid hunter, and the hunting I do is pretty physical,” he says. “I’m up and down the mountains, and (the pain) just got in the way of life. I couldn’t see myself dealing with that pain anymore.
“Even traveling, it was starting to get difficult. I travel a lot with my wife, and the pain started to get in the way.”
To treat the pain, Dr. Albright received cortisone injections from a local orthopaedic specialist for about 10 years. The pain-relieving effect of the shots started to wane over time.
“Sometimes, I’d get a year out of a shot. Sometimes, I’d get six months. Sometimes, they wouldn’t work at all,” Dr. Albright says. “But, definitely, as the years went on, they worked less and less, and the knees got worse.”
Dr. Albright says he changed his walking gait to compensate for the pain. However, this ended up causing him sciatica — pain that starts in the lower back and radiates down the legs.
The breaking point for Dr. Albright came during the 2024 hunting season.
“There’s a certain area that we hunt, and I said to myself, ‘I don’t know if I can do it,'” he says. “I did it, but then I didn’t walk right for the next month. It was terrible. That was definitely the breaking point.”
Seeking Care from a Colleague
Dr. Albright didn’t know Dr. Hubler personally, but he knew him by reputation.
Both doctors work out of UPMC Specialty Care in Lewisburg, and they have referred patients to each other over the years. Dr. Albright says the patients he sent to Dr. Hubler had good results.
“I said, ‘I might as well check that out,’” Dr. Albright says.
Dr. Hubler performs robotic-assisted knee replacements, which allow for more precise surgeries. He was also willing to replace both of Dr. Albright’s knees at one time, which Dr. Albright wanted.
“One of the considerations was my time,” Dr. Albright says. “I see a lot of patients a day, so I can’t be out of the office for weeks and weeks. I’ve got to see patients. So, I thought, ‘If I do this, I want to get both knees done at once so I can be out a minimal amount of time and be back to work.'”
Dr. Albright also hoped to get the surgery done early enough that he could be ready for the 2025 hunting season.
He met with Dr. Hubler in January 2025 and says it was a comfortable and thorough appointment.
“He had gone over my history very thoroughly,” Dr. Albright says. “He looked at my x-rays; we looked at them together. He was thorough and straightforward and explained what was going on with my knees.
“There was no rush to it. He wasn’t in and out of there. We talked for a while.”
Dr. Albright also learned that Dr. Hubler was a hunter himself, giving them something to bond over.
A Successful Surgery and Recovery
Dr. Hubler performed Dr. Albright’s double knee replacement on March 23, 2025, at UPMC Williamsport.
Dr. Albright spent two nights in the hospital before being released. He says the inpatient physical therapy team and the nursing staff at the hospital helped him have a positive experience.
“It was pretty straightforward,” Dr. Albright says. “”The nurse who does the pre-surgery education explained what to expect during and after surgery very well. I kind of knew what to expect, but you don’t really know until you go through it. My pain was well-controlled. I didn’t really feel that I needed to take a lot of pain medicine.”
Dr. Albright recuperated at home for the first few weeks after surgery.
“It wasn’t easy the first three weeks, getting up and down,” he says.
“I was on a walker for a week and a half to two weeks before I felt comfortable going without it, and then I went to a cane. After a couple of days, I thought, ‘I can do this without the cane.’ And then I was good.”
Three weeks after surgery, Dr. Albright returned to seeing patients. By five weeks post-op, he was back to his full schedule.
He says he also had a positive experience with outpatient physical therapy at UPMC Muncy. He went to therapy three times a week for the first few weeks then followed his exercise routine faithfully at home twice a day, something he credits for his excellent result.
Dr. Albright says he started feeling major progress about four to five months after surgery.
“I started to do some walking and doing a little hiking and noticed, ‘I don’t have that pain,'” he says.
Pain-Free Living
Ten months after surgery, Dr. Albright’s pain has improved. So has his gait.
“I was starting to walk a little bowlegged from my arthritis (before surgery),” he says. “Dr. Hubler straightened the legs up and they do feel and look different. There’s no pain there, and I can do what I want to do.”
He experienced no issues when hunting in 2025. He even returned to the area that gave him particular trouble in 2024, hunting there three times.
“I hunted for almost the whole two weeks,” he says. “I climbed to the top of the mountain. I had no problems — no pain. My double knee surgery has been extremely successful.”
Dr. Albright says he had a great experience with Dr. Hubler and his care team.
“It was excellent,” he says. “I have no complaints. From the beginning, everything went well, and everybody, before and after the surgery, was very good.”