10 surgeries and pain is my friend
Let's see....Age 18..it started after a car accident as the passenger I hit both knees on the dashboard. I was a runner and very athletic then. Both knees were bruised and hurt bad but nothing was wrong. I continued karate and running and the pain continued too. I had arthoscopic surgery and was told chondromalacia patella. (I always had one leg done then the other), I eventually had a lateral release on one leg only, then a tibia tubercle transfer, then had to have the screws removed because of rejection pain, then had tibia tubercleplasty with patella femoral arthroplasty (basically put part of my hip in my knee to pull the kneecap out of the groove a bit to cut down on quadricept muscle strain).... to make this short I had 7 surgeries on one leg and 3 on the other. One leg is worse than the other for me. After each surgery I've had about 6 months to a year relatively pain-free or at least less pain. Looking back now after learning more, I probably didn't need 6 of the surgeries I had...but what can ya do when you trust your doc? None of these surgeries were performed until after I exhausted pt each time. Needless to say pt did squat for me except cause more pain. I am 19 days out from my latest surgery - patellectomy so we shall see how that works. It is a last resort surgery for me. No one will do a Total Knee replacement because I am too young (now 33). I guess you can say I've been through this for quite some time. If all goes well I will have my other leg done and be finished with this knee stuff. So far my knee doesn't hurt like it used to but then again I'm not using much of it yet. I will post again after I have gone through pt to regain muscle strength.
I've had so many doctors tell me different things, work through the pain, get an assistance dog, use a wheelchair, don't use a wheelchair, pt will cure it, water exercise will cure it, use narcotics, don't use narcotics, been there done that and I still have pain.
Like so many others who have listed, my kneecap was out of alignment for so long I didn't have any cartilage under my kneecap when the doc took it out. I will need to choose a different career soon myself. My current job is standing all day which I can no longer do.... or I guess refuse to do now. I'm finally realizing I need to take better care of myself after all this (doesn't take me long to catch on =)
I highly recommend hand controls for your car. I just got them installed and I love them. No more pain driving!! Look into mobility products they will make life easier for you.
Good luck to you all out there.
From:
Judy - judyocp@hotmail.com
