Hi everyone! It's been roughly a year and a half since I started reading everything here. Coincidentally, January 2018 is when my bad knee received its first arthritis flare up and swelling which required draining and cortisone. At 19, I blew my ACL and tore meniscus in this knee. Several "events" later (which gave me wonderful prizes such as more surgeries, crutches, and pain pills) and my knee is now valgus knock kneed at about 12-15 degrees. I have major damage in the lateral compartment.
TKR is in my future, but I continue to fight it off. I'm not miserable (yet), but I think about my knee every day, and basically every step. It's usually achy. I try to stay positive and realize this bad knee has taught me the importance of trying to eat better, lose weight, and work out a lot. I do stationary bike and walking to keep loose. I do lots of leg lifts and core exercises taught to me by PT back in 2018. I'm also back to lifting weights 4x/wk for upper body strength.
I continue to rotate cortisone and lube shots. They do help. I'm also done listening to any naysayer doctors that consider a TKR just a half step above amputation. Some docs are realistic and are like when you need it, let me know. Others are like "oh no your life would be ruined with a TKR!" Then I ask so what exactly is it now? I can't play sports anymore. I don't go up steps normally, because it hurts the outside of the knee. Outside of shots/pills, 2 docs have suggested an osteotomy. That's a big noooooope for me. I'm not volunteering to break my femur all to MAYBE get 5-7 years before that fails, then face more challenging TKRs due to a femur that looks like Frankenstein.
Anyways sorry for the rant, but I hope everyone is doing well. It's a terrible situation to face an eventual major surgery for a garbage joint in your body, especially so young, but there are certainly worse things in life. I'm hoping to make it over 40, so then at least I may live a long life with that first TKR or at most one revision.
Cheers!
TKR is in my future, but I continue to fight it off. I'm not miserable (yet), but I think about my knee every day, and basically every step. It's usually achy. I try to stay positive and realize this bad knee has taught me the importance of trying to eat better, lose weight, and work out a lot. I do stationary bike and walking to keep loose. I do lots of leg lifts and core exercises taught to me by PT back in 2018. I'm also back to lifting weights 4x/wk for upper body strength.
I continue to rotate cortisone and lube shots. They do help. I'm also done listening to any naysayer doctors that consider a TKR just a half step above amputation. Some docs are realistic and are like when you need it, let me know. Others are like "oh no your life would be ruined with a TKR!" Then I ask so what exactly is it now? I can't play sports anymore. I don't go up steps normally, because it hurts the outside of the knee. Outside of shots/pills, 2 docs have suggested an osteotomy. That's a big noooooope for me. I'm not volunteering to break my femur all to MAYBE get 5-7 years before that fails, then face more challenging TKRs due to a femur that looks like Frankenstein.
Anyways sorry for the rant, but I hope everyone is doing well. It's a terrible situation to face an eventual major surgery for a garbage joint in your body, especially so young, but there are certainly worse things in life. I'm hoping to make it over 40, so then at least I may live a long life with that first TKR or at most one revision.
Cheers!