Tales of a Tricky Knee

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By Anne W. Semmes
Sentinel Columnist

Anne W. Semmes, Sentinel Columnist

In the parlance of the stock market, I suffer from the result of irrational exuberance. Four years ago I suddenly rose from my beach chair atop a sand dune on Chincoteague Island, Va., and raced down the dune to dive into the ocean when a large wave overcame me, causing me to struggle upwards and tear the meniscus cartilage in my right knee. Life has not been the same since.

The first order of business was to hightail it to ONS, where arthroscopic minimal surgery was prescribed to deal with the torn meniscus. The good orthopedic surgeon deftly trimmed up the torn cartilage and sent me on my way for physical therapy.

All was going well until the therapist had a bad day and took it out on my knee, perhaps thinking he could exorcise the problem. I managed to make it home vowing to find another cure. Thoughts came of that great trainer I had written about who might have the right approach. Sure enough, when he saw me limping in the door he had the answers.

“It’s all in the way you walk, you need to keep your body straight and walk flat footed, not heal first.” I was given exercises to align my body against a wall, heels to wall, shoulders down and hold it for a minute. This, I was told, would negate the need for knee or hip replacements. That spoke volumes, reflecting back to those visits to friends recuperating from such surgeries.

I come from a family of three sisters, and none of us has had a replacement!

So, the flat-feet-down has helped. And I’ve taken off some weight for the knee. But that nasty pain going down my leg when I turned it just so was still there—and didn’t that reflection in the street window show a little limp still?

“You’ve got to go to my doctor,” said the husband of a friend. “What you need is a partial knee replacement.” Grr… “Come on Anne, it’s the answer!”

This doctor had a New York address. He explained after X-raying me how he would replace the faulty part of the knee with a customized 3-D implant, which required my getting an MRI in Manhattan. Handing me the order form to be given to the MRI staff, I looked at it when I arrived home only to find it was for the left rather than the right knee. Now, I understand that this is a big business, with 700,000-plus knee replacements being done every year. (Surely there is an investment to be made here!) But give my left knee a break! It’s my right knee, sir.

After expressing my dismay and displeasure to the doctor, who emailed the correction to the MRI folks, I exercised forbearance and journeyed into New York for my MRI on Columbus Circle. No mean trick for a working girl in Greenwich. When I arrived I was told I was in the wrong MRI office—the right one being by Columbia University across town. I calmly (though with gritted teeth and a sore knee) got into my car and drove back to work. Scratch that option.

The years passing, I’ve heard of friends having replacements replaced, so I feel I’ve dodged a bullet. Even my general doctor has told me, “If you can do your errands, you don’t need a knee replacement.” But one sore knee has led to a corresponding sore hip, and now that side of me is affecting the other side, and I am vocalizing my discomfort.

“Haven’t you heard? Getting older is not for sissies” are my sister’s not exactly comforting words. “Try Epsom salt baths, Mom,” offered a daughter.

But I remain on the lookout. When my bank manager mentioned ONS was hiring a holistic medicine man my heart leapt, as surely that meant a non-surgical approach to a sore knee. But a call found no such personnel.

A good friend alerted me to the article on “Latest Cures for Aching Knees” in the latest AARP magazine. It grabbed my attention: “Demand for knee-replacement surgery is booming. But it’s not the answer for everyone.” New therapies are spelled out! Injecting stem cells to build cartilage! Protein blockers, bone-builders… And now we have New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery moving in to Stamford Hospital. Maybe they’ll have a way of scanning my whole body to tell me what to do!

My Facebook page is now framed with myriad cure approaches resulting from my Google search for treatments. And suggestions keep coming in from friends for their doctors, for their physical therapy, massages, and acupuncture. Try yoga or Pilates!  Now that I’ve run into trouble with some of my gym classes I’ve booked a trainer who promises he can stretch me out and strengthen my sore limbs.

And to think it was my knees that first attracted that handsome Englishman on a climb in the fells of the Lake District—back in the days when we wore Bermuda shorts.

 

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