These things do happen sometimes

[ritaxis]

Last week I had my knees xrayed, and I got a copy to bring home.

My first impression was that my knees were a little worse than before. Then I looked at the old ones again.

My knees are better than before. Not a lot, but really noticeable. In the old xrays my left knee bones are touching and the right ones are touching over a significant area. In the new ones the left bones are nearly touching and the right ones are barely touching. That's a real difference.

I don't know whether that means the cartilage has been repairing itself, or whether the cartilage is less compressed than it was a year and a half ago. Until recently the received knowledge was that cartilage doesn't repair itself: now it's considered that cartilage rarely repairs itself.

I also am not sure about function: I am having a hard time comparing my function now with my function then. I wouldn't consider a full-time job getting on the floor with babies now. But that might be that I'm much more aware of the difference between being well and not being well. Also, I'm using the walking sticks a lot of the time, and I didn't have them then, but it's also partly because I am reluctant to give up the speed the walking sticks give me (with a walking stick I can walk fast enough to raise my pulse and get short of breath if I want to, something I have not been able to do for years, since long before I even knew there was something going on with my knees). Folk dancing is the one measure where I'm sure I've had improvement in function (though not necessarily in stamina).

I am sure about pain. I have not been kept awake by pain but once or twice in the last eight months. I can go a week or more without significant pain at all.

In any case, it means that the current strategy is to continue with as much physical therapy as I can manage, and not consider surgery as an immediate option (though it's still in the range of future possibilities).

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

This is very encouraging. Whatever it is that you're doing, it seems to be working.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Encouraging news. I got my own arthritis diagnosis for a thumb, and am hoping that it will improve in seven weeks.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what's good for a thumb, but in our area the Visiting Nurses Association for some reason has their very own hand clinic a person can get a referral to. I took Emma there when she was a young teenager showing signs of incipient repetitive motion injury and more than ten years later she has almost no problems though she uses her hands quite a lot. So I endorse what they do (pretty much the gamut of physical therapy modalities for hands).

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

That's terrific, avoiding surgery!

Love, C.

[redbird]

That is definitely good news.