Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Knees are nearly bone on bone, now what?

Good Genes

If your overweight lose some weight.
More weight = more pain.
Build muscle surrounding the knee to help support the joint.
Had both mine done 4 years ago at 54.

I see vicoden in your future, or whatever they call Codeine pain meds nowadays. Few years of that and then the pain will tell you when it's time for a new knee.

Jeez, you need a new doctor. Or get to a bigger town.
I just had my right knee replaced on 5-9. Turned 61 on 5-29. I have been fighting the pain for the last 3 years, really became limiting the last year. Maybe I got lucky or maybe I am in the no brains no pain club. At 5 weeks I am at 0° on extension and at 125° on flex. My PT is real happy with the way it's going. His words today, "this is bitchen". It has not been brutal or excessively painful.My second phase of PT will be building back my leg strength. Its amazing how much strength I lost favoring it for 3 years. I quit taking the oxy on a regular basis on 5-12 and just take on 5-325 before PT. I was motoring with a walker on the same day. Stiff legged for 20 minutes, twice a day. I did prescribed in home exercises before I went to outpatient PT.
My doc told me this is a lifetime knee. My only limitation is no running and don't fall on it. I told him I ride motocross, he said "no running". Lots of biking and elliptical work in my future. I'm glad I did it and wish had had done it the first time I was asked if I was ready to do it.

Smithrjd, I am going to look at stem cells for my left knee. Doc says that one is shot but I don't have any severe symptoms that make me want to rush into another knee replacement.

John they measured me for a custom brace today. Supposed to push the joint sideways to take some pressure off the worst side.

This. Left knee was in bad shape and acked if I walked more than 1/4 mile. Started with the chonroitin and 4 to 5 weeks later have not had a pain since, unless I try jogging. If I try jogging it still hurts "some", but not like before! That stuffs a miracle. Got my Mom taking it and her hips are better, too.

I was bad on my knees, 20 years in the Navy running up and down ladders.. Motocross and Enduro racing. I work with electronics, spends days behind an equipment rack on my knees always up and down. Got to where I could not bend down and stand up. Walking two blocks almost brought me to tears. Wife has had cartilage removed, and shoulder surgery. She has had what I call Chicken Juice, I think what others call gel or lube. It has helped her, along with cortisone shots. For my knees neither helped much at all. Draining and cortisone was temporary at best. Got the swelling down but did not help the underlining issues. So far so good, but the day will come when I need both replaced. I just want to wait until I HAVE too..

First, if you are more than 10% body fat, lose weight. At age 61 My Ortho told me if I quit running and skiing I could delay knee replacements for a few years. 10 years later I can limp close to 10 miles in the Mts. Braces and injections will just delay the inevitable if you remain active so get a rebuild now and don't expect much help from pain meds as they are now severely restricted. When pain wakes you from your sleep it becomes significant.


mike r

I don't understand this "you're too young to have a TKR" advice from your doctor. After looking at x-rays that show bone on bone, hearing your personal testimonies on how rotten your quality of life has gotten, how much it hurts daily.........who the hell are they to tell you to wait? Screw that. When it starts hurting bad enough, you'll get it done. I don't care if you're 40. So you may have to get another one in 25-30 yrs. You may not live that long anyway.

Here's a different solution that very often works:

Find a doctor that will inject platelet rich plasma (PRP) into the joints. The tissue between the bones heals very slowly, if at all, because it has no strong blood supply. PRP bypasses that problem and the tissue will heal itself. Sis had that done on her shoulder several years ago and has been just fine ever since. She does have some extremely good contacts in the medical community, which helped her find a provider.

Her report is that it hurts like Old Billy, and that she had to have it done 2-3 times. But the results were outstanding.

I am 69 years old and 15 years ago my doctor (orthopedic) recommended Cosamin DS after telling me I had no cartilage in my left knee. He said FDA proved 80% effective in growing cartilage. Within 3 weeks I had no more pain or problems. Took it for a year then laid off for a couple. Whenever I felt a twinge, I'd start taking it again. I have recommended it to many people since with similar results. Believe me, I thought that doctor was brushing me off but it really fixed me and many others. Try it. It is great. Joe

An unloader brace
Have one for my right knee

Fugging 24 yrs of take a knee security halts
While some 22 yr old 2LT wants to do a map check for the
17th time during a movement to daylight......


And toss in all the other stuff from being a light infantryman(it's an oxymoranical term big time)


They smarting the fugg up after awhile and can actually make a hit time.
After they realize they need ta listen to their nco,s about land nav day and night, and not get their ass reamed by a company or battalion commander again.

Problem is your getting a new one every 10- 14 months,
Sometimes way sooner
And all the nco,s in a platoon have to start the process of raising up another
Butter bar again.....
But it's worth it when some become excellent company and battalion and brigade commanders
You serve under years later and ya tell em your knee hurts because of them and the land nav 101 stuff
You beat into their head as a butter bar.
Good times.....



VA compensated knee.

my femur almost 2 years ago , doc said wont replace knees until im fully healled from this.goin on 59 so guess i just live with the pain the rest of my life

Gawd dammm.....
That was a "good" one....
What happened?

Problem is it's expensive and insurance won't cover it. I looked into that myself. Healing cartiledge loss is one thing, having no gaps between your knee joints is entirely another.

Ain't they got a procedure that involves grinding upper and lower joints and installing basically Teflon or similar material like plates
to replace the non existent cartelidge in the joint?
Instead of total joint replacement.

Not sure about that r50. The artificial joints I have, have this teflon cartiledge thing in between the metal.

idiot teenager renegade playin with her phone. i was standin outside my truck on a county road 3 miles from the house look up and bam. my knees were bad before but it blowed all the ritus out literally.plus double fracture scapula ,3 ribs ,wrist,severe ankle sprain and torn rotator in left ,all on the rite side .it sucks tryin to wipe my azz to this day

I partially tore my ACL walking a side hill with too heavy a pack. The doc put it back together but he had to take out quite a bit of the meniscus that I probably got from an old football injury. Once that pad, the meniscus, between the bones in the knee gets injured it rubs on itself and wears out the good part. I waited too long to have that looked at. No arthritis so I'm waiting for when they will do a meniscus transplant replacement with either a synthetic one or one from a bone bank. I was listening to public radio and a year or two back it was in the experimental stage back then. I have heard good things about total knee replacement, but I also know a guy who got a bad infection and nearly died. Step dad had a real early one and the thing clicked like a castanet. He had to go up steps backwards because he didn't have good range of motion.

Dayom, tusker, im sorry to hear that.