Hi all,
I am 43 and was first diagnosed with OA in my left knee when I was in my 20's. I had laparascopic surgery to remove cartilage that was free floating and "shredded" and also placed on Celebrex for a short time but taken off because I was too young to be on it for an extended length of time.
The pain would come and go from time to time but I didn't pay too much attention to it as I was not too active outside of working a lot. I was morbidly obese for a good part of my adult life which did not help the situation but my current ortho said that that was not the reason for my OA. I had to have been born with a genetic anomaly because in both my knees my posterior horn of my meniscus is absent.
I worked out for about 2 years with a trainer starting in 2015 and dropped about 90 lbs or so and gained a decent amount of muscle as well.
I did that and also took up some running (bad move on my part as it made the knees hurt more) and did some obstacle course races.
I tore both my medial and lateral meniscus in my L knee Dec 2016 but still continued to workout with the intermittent pain.
I finally had laparoscopic surgery in Dec 2017 to remove the tears because my knee kept giving out on me and my ortho had to aspirate 30+ mL of fluid from that knee in Oct 2017.
When I had the surgery he discovered that the OA was not only in all 3 compartments but also in the head of my femur as well.
He said that he has only seen a knee that bad typically on someone who is 65. And I was 41 at the time.
We started cortisone injections mid 2018 to help control the pain and inflammation from being bone on bone and also tried the Orthovisc injection as well. My right knee started acting up shortly after as well and after an MRI and xray, it was confirmed that that knee also had OA, just not as severe as my left knee.
After doing cortisone every 3 months on both knees and supplementing with an unreasonable amount of ibuprofen for the last year and a half roughly, I just cant take it anymore. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in august and am on Lyrica, so between the drug and lessening my gym activity because of the pain I have gained about 25lbs and am now trying to lose some of it and strengthen my legs more before surgery.