Yesterday I had scheduled a half-day off of work to see a knee doctor – the same doctor who did my partial meniscectomy on my left knee in 2008.  I’m pretty gimpy at this point, and I really don’t like the idea of using a cane, so Kevin agreed to come along and push me in a wheelchair just to make it easier.  Thanks, Kev! Anyway, I was asked to come 15 minutes early to fill out the initial paperwork. I came an hour early, and STILL barely finished it all by the time of my appointment!  It was a crazy stack of my history, my medications, my FAMILY history, surveys, etc. etc., and I didn’t want to mess any of it up, so one hour early turned out to be just right–though the receptionist did say “you’re REALLY early, just in case you didn’t realize it” when we arrived.

Promptly at my appointment time I was taken into an X-Ray room and a few X-Rays were taken.  My regular doctor had ordered X-Rays a week ago, which I went to the hospital and had done that same day, but the assistant said these are a different set of x-rays specific to my knee issue.  After several minutes of performing various poses and bends for x-rays–some of which were pretty painful–I was taken to another room to wait for the doctor.

Sidenote: Next time I’ll know–skip any tests my regular doctor wants to do, and just go see the knee doctor for knee issues… I’m pretty sure the first set of x-rays were a waste of time and thousands of dollars of insurance money (and probably a chunk of MY money, I just haven’t gotten the bill yet–

My knee doctor came in after a few minutes, showed me all the x-rays and explained the options.  Basically, my right knee is partially bone-on-bone. There is very little meniscus left. This, and arthritis on this knee, explains all my recent and increasing pain.  My regular doctor has prescribed Tylenol with Codeine, and my knee doctor said this was a bad choice–Codeine will not help with this kind of pain at all. He told me to stop the Codeine and he prescribed a different medication.

He went on to list all of the available treatments, and narrowed things down for my particular situation.  Here’s where I stand: My right knee needs to be replaced, that’s a given. The question is WHEN. Insurance companies recommend this as a last-resort option though, especially for someone my age, preferring instead pain management and therapy to reduce the pain and increase mobility and quality of life.

In my particular situation, the doctor said he won’t do the surgery anyway, until my BMI is 40 or below.  He said 30 is optimal, but he’ll be realistic and settle for 40. I’m currently over 50, he said. Google says it’s 48.4, but what does the Internet know?  Anyway, it’s too high, so I need some serious diet and exercise changes. All of this will help a lot with my health and fitness overall, as well as allow me to get a new knee, so it’ll be good all around.  I’m waiting for a nutritionist to call me so I can get a solid plan setup and going. But I already had my initial evaluation for Physical and Aquatic Therapy last night.

I am scheduled for many appointments for PT and Aquatic Therapy already, which starts Tuesday 8/14.  I’m still struggling to see how I’m going to continue to lose weight if I’m not walking my two miles a day, but I do have a schedule of exercises to do at home already, and I’m supposed to walk a little, but only as much as my knee can tolerate.  I’m not quite sure what that means yet, or how far I should I should push it each time though… Until I’m crying from the pain? Just short of that? Until the pain is to the point I can’t think straight? How do you measure that?

So that’s it.  I can’t just get the new knee and shorten the recovery time by several months or years… I have to work through it for my overall health improvement, and then, when I’m finally feeling great, much less fat and in less pain, THEN I can go through the trauma of a full knee replacement and start all over again.  Dems da rules. Let’s do this and get it done!