Knee Update- Mixed News – BionicOldGuy

I noticed my major care physician for a follow-up about my knee, after getting MRI and x-ray outcomes. The bump on my knee is pretty benign- there’s a lateral meniscus tear which is permitting joint fluid to flee, inflicting a cyst. That explains why the scale of the bump has waxed and waned over the previous few weeks- it will get greater when infected. The MRI additionally confirmed fairly intensive indicators of osteoarthritis within the knee joint. So for now she desires me to ice it and elevate my legs when the bump will get bigger, or I’ve any ache. Then I’ve a follow-up with my orthopedic Doc on Oct. 25. That can be attention-grabbing. Presumably, we will do minimally-invasive surgical procedure to repair the tear. The arthritis is a longer-term problem.

Surprisingly, I’ve had just about no ache. I bear in mind when my proper hip was first identified with arthritis it was already painful, to the purpose it was aching and protecting me up at night time. But by modifying my train (giving up operating and sticking to biking and mountain climbing), I used to be capable of go one other ten years earlier than the hip had to get replaced. So I’m hoping to get 10 years or so out of the knee joint if I deal with it proper.

There are a number of measures I can take, together with doing extra higher physique exercises and fewer decrease, not pushing huge gears on the bike, and avoiding downhill mountain climbing, or a minimum of steep downhills. I’ve a number of native locations I can hike up pushing a motorcycle then, bike down, or hike up and use a gradually-sloped path down. For adventures additional afield, there are ski areas that within the low season allow you to hike up after which take the gondola down. But I believe I’ll keep on with biking as my major exercise, since that’s simple on the knees if you happen to don’t push huge gears.

I can consider some issues I did in my misspent youth which will have pre-disposed me to arthritis. I did lots of operating and was a heel-striker, which we now know may cause extra affect. I additionally discovered mountain climbing downhill boring, so I used to like to hike up then run down trails, even steep ones. I can’t change any of that now, however I can deal with it higher going ahead. And we’ll see what my ortho Doc says on the follow-up.