Bad Knees Blog - take 2

A lot has transpired since my first post on January 22nd, so I’m going to spend the next couple of days filling in the blanks. By the way, sorry about the numerous typos in that first blog. I laid it out as it came to me and didn’t check for errors – Some English teacher. Anyway, I suppose I could have posted that piece when I wrote it, but I wanted to let it sit for a time because I wasn’t 100% sure I would make it public. After all, who wants to hear a 62 year-old man bellyache about his aches and pains? So, fully aware that I ain’t nothin’ special, I’m going ahead with this project because I think it has something to offer that’s about more than me. Besides, this stem cell technology is pretty interesting, so it’s worth doing. Even my doctor (and possible future surgeon) is interested in how this goes.

The January 22nd posting was inspired by pain. For the next five days the inspiration grew to the point where I was managing to get 3 to four hours of bad sleep each night. I had already decided to go with the stem cell procedure and made the appointment for March 21, but that meant 2 months of misery and, even though I'm a Youper and, like every Youper I know, pride myself on being tough, I started wondering how I was going to manage this. Advil is my go to pain reliever, but even double doses weren't touching it. I could have gotten a prescription for stronger stuff, but this county is in the middle of a plague of prescription drug addiction and overdoses, and I admit I'm more than a little afraid to put my toe into those waters. What's worse, after tomorrow the prep for the stem cells includes cutting out all over the counter pain relievers and alcohol. They recommend using turmeric and fish oil to cut the inflammation and related pain. I figured "What have I got to lose?" and I tried turmeric capsules during that week. Maybe the effects are cumulative, and I love curry, but no go.

I'm going to back up a little here. After I realized the HA injections hadn't done anything and may even have made my knees worse (speculation, not science) I met with my doctor at UB Ortho. As always, he and his team spent an hour looking at my knee, mri's, reports and the rest and concluded that the knee replacement was inevitable. I told him I wasn't ready because, at 62 I'd looking at another operation 10 to 15 years down the road, and the second time around gets complicated. He agreed, and also said it could limit my hiking and other activities, but asked if I'd be willing to talk with a surgeon just to get the facts.

By the way, UB Ortho is part of the University at Buffalo's medical campus. When one of the Buffalo Bills or Sabres gets injured, my doctor and his colleagues are the guys who patch them up, so you can understand why I decided to go them. What's surprising is that they treat me like I'm their only patient when I go there. They take time, answer questions, and address my concerns.

I went in on Wednesday, January 27. What I thought would be a 30 minute appointment turned into 3 hours. They took a series of xrays. Then I met with one doctor, probably a resident from the school of medicine. He went over my pictures with me, talked about my concerns, and put my knee through a rash of motion and flexibility tests - what in any third world would qualify as torture.

By the time the surgeon walked in, he knew everything about my situation, every detail about my knee, and all my misgivings. He made no bones about it, surgery was permanent an imperfect ("no bones" get it?). Here's a picture of what gets put in after they saw top of your tibia away. Ouch!

I admit it's kind of cool, shiny and all space-agey, and I'll go that route when the time comes, but the longer I can put that off the better.

So the doctor spent a lot of time talking about the philisophy behind everything we're doing. The problem isn't that I have really bad case of arthritis, despite the fact that I have a really bad case of arthritis; the problem is the pain. I already knew that, but it was good to hear him lay it out in a way that justified my decision to try the experimental road first. What surprised me the most was that he agreed that it was worth trying because, regardless of what I did, my bad knee wasn't going anywhere.

At the end of the meeting I made one request. "Could I have a shot of steroidal cortizone?"

More on that next time.