I saw an orthopedist yesterday because after months of increasing pain, I can’t deal with it anymore. Like everyone else my age apparently, I have arthritis in my knees and hips as seen on X-rays. Also some disc degeneration. He gave me a shot in the knee and ordered pt. After 8 hours, I could have cried from the relief! It is almost like I didn’t realize how much pain I was in. I can’t imagine being able to do anything useful in pt if the shot hadn’t worked.
Having said all that, I don’t have a diagnosis. Doctor said the arthritis is behind the kneecap, but my pain is in the back and upper calf. I plan to give pt about a month, and if the pain is back by then I want an MRI. I was much more passive when I had a torn rotator cuff and spent months in pt when there was no hope of non-surgical repair.
I welcome any advice from those of you with experience with a bad knee.
“Doctor said the arthritis is behind the kneecap, but my pain is in the back and upper calf.”
I know from family members that sometimes the pain shows up in another spot because we tend walk and move differently as a result of a problem which can stress other areas. Maybe that is what you are experiencing.
I have 2 family members who have had great success with knee replacement surgery - one in her 50s and one in her 70s. Both were very successful and gave them increased mobility and a relief from pain. Has your doctor talked surgery down the road if PT doesn’t do the trick?
I assume you got a cortisone steroid shot? They can do the trick. For some it is lasting, for some it isn’t.
Have you read anything about Zyflamend? My sister had terrible knee pain that was messing up her life, thought she had to have surgery, and swears that this has made her a different person. She can actually walk without pain now. My husband has arthritis, a knee missing an ACL, another knee that had patellar tendon surgery and huge Bakers cysts. He is an athlete, and always has a tough time recovering from his intense workouts as he’s gotten older. He also doesn’t tend to believe that any supplements work. He started taking this stuff, was recovering from his mega workouts really fast and thought, “It’s psychological” or just coincidental. He forgot to take it with him on a trip, started suffering the pain again. Went back on it, and you can’t believe the exercise he’s able to do now.
If a skeptic like him is made into a believer, it’s got to really work.
@doschicos Yes, it was a steroid shot. Although I’m still quite comfortable, its not as good as this am. Doctor didn’t say anything about surgery, I think because I have to go through the non-invasive steps first. Which I understand. He mentioned the pain could be from my back. I’m impatient to know what’s wrong!
@busdriver11 I’ll check out Zyflamend. Never heard of it.
The reason the shot effect seems to be going away is likely that a shorter-acting painkiller was included in the shot, and has been wearing off quickly. Steroids effect lasts for a few weeks.
I had arthroscopy in '95 for a meniscus tear (thanks, rugby!) and have a heightened risk of arthritis, but it hasn’t come up yet. So glad you got some relief–lots of ways for knees to go wrong.
Arthritis is a diagnosis. It is an inflammatory condition that can cause pain and loss of range of motion. You might also have something else going on as well that a MRI could possibly reveal.
In my case, I had arthritis and wear and tear on the back of the kneecap. Also something called plica syndrome. I had my knee scoped. The back of my kneecap was a mess, so he smoothed it out and removed the plica. I’m better now, but it took a lot longer to recover than I anticipated. The surgery is not a permanent cure for arthritis or age related wear and tear, though.
Bunsen is spot on. Steroids don’t take effect for 3 to 5 days. Your relief was from a local anesthetic that was also injected at the same time, which began to wear off after a while.
@Nrdsb4 The doctor did say the arthritis is behind my kneecap though the pain is more in my upper calf and along the outside back of the knee. He thought it could be referred pain from my back.
I think I’m scarred from my experience the first time around with my torn rotator cuff. The pt was constantly chewing gum and encouraging me with the body’s amazing ability to heal itself based on her own injuries. When I finally got an MRI, the tendon was completely torn away.
Pain can manifest itself in other areas, the way the nerves are wired in the body inflammation in one place can seem to come from another. I remember when I injured my knee in high school, and it hurt all over, it was a minor tear.
One thing that may help with the pain (and no, I am not claiming this as a miracle cure or that even it definitely will work) is to look into what is often called an anti inflammation diet. My wife has kind of had us on this and since starting it while I still have pain in the joints I seem to have a lot better range of motion and I don’t have what I have had recently, where walking up a flight of stairs I wondered if I would make it. Like I said, I can’t promise it will cure everything, but it seems to be working somewhat for me, so I thought I would offer it up as a suggestion. There is information all over, whole cookbooks with it, Dr. Weill on his website has a lot of information on it, too. The added benefit is this is supposed to also help with heart disease prevention, so you might get two benefits out of it:)
Interesting, musicprnt. Ant-inflammatory is a big thing here among alt med folks. Yes, I was just looking at cholesterol recommendations and there are many parallels.
@lookingforward:
One of the big newest theories about heart disease is that they were barking up the wrong tree by focusing only on cholesterol or the obsession with dietary fat=dietary cholesterol=heart disease when the correlations are very complex. Doctors for example still prescribe Niacin, which does impact the HDL/LDL ratio in a positive way, but some pretty definitive studies have said despite making the HDL/LDL ratio better, taking Niacin has little to no impact on heart health…in other words, there likely are many cofactors to heart health. Inflammation, especially but not limited to sugar, would make sense, inflammation causes damage, and blood vessels become clogged when the vessel walls get scarred, plaque can’t stick if the wall is not damaged (a variety of things do that, it is why people are supposed to take folic acid, it blocks an amino acid, homocysteine, from scarring the artery walls).
As much as I hate to admit it, the way we have been eating seems to have helped my arthritis symptoms, so maybe there really is something to it.
Yes. And fascinating. I do like that there’s a good amount of consistency in the info I find (anti-inflam and lowering chol. (And for me, this diet is where I was headed, anyway, not unpleasant.)
But re: this thread, real arthritis, shown in images, is its own damage. I was diagnosed with patellofemoral, based on no visual evidence of arthritis. But now the doc says not all arth is visible, even via a CT. Alas, his rec- in my case- is exercise, either way. The idea being, that can restore cartilage, can improve muscle/tendon strength, benefit either condition. It’s going to be YMMV.