Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Knee Update

Well, it turns out I have something called patellar-femural syndrome and I'm developing arthritis. Years of extra weight, plus overcompensating for my weaker leg, plus driving have worn down my knee's cartilage and now my kneecap is trying to find itself a new home by sliding. It would also appear I may have been overdoing it slightly with my workout routine...

I saw the folks over at the clinic where I had my leg repaired, and I would seriously trust them with my life after the great job they did on my leg. I saw someone new today, and I really liked him, although it's clear that Sunshine is the star of the show. This guy looked just slightly beleaguered, kind of like "I dare you to be disappointed that I'm not Sunshine." But I was a good patient and let him poke around, even when I thought he was trying to kill me. Seriously? It HURT. Joe (the PA) even said, "You've got a lot of movement going on in there."

They took some x-rays to confirm it, showed me some diagrams that I really didn't understand very well, and then sent me across the hall to the physical therapy department. Fortunately, the place where I'm going to have my PT is only 2 streets over from here. Unfortunately, the earliest they can see me is a week from now. And until then, the most activity I'm allowed to engage in is to walk and possibly do water aerobics (fat chance, the Y here is too expensive to join if I'm not sure I'm going to stick with it). Otherwise, I have a few exercises to do daily to strengthen my knee, and I just have to wait for PT.

The good thing about doing WW is that they were very encouraged with my losing weight and taking some of the pressure off my knees. So an added benefit of all this is that my health, even though I'm in pain, is improving. Cool.

(Cross posted to Kate's Weight Blog)

1 pearl(s) of wisdom:

Seraphim9 said...

OK, so show you how dense I can be....when you said you were compensating for your weaker leg my feeble little brain went, "Oh, wonder what happened to her leg to make it weaker?"

Only moments later did I remember about you breaking your ankle - that was around the time when I first started reading your blog after perusing some of Nettie's other "blog friends". Wow, just look at what being nosy has gotten me - another great set of friends. :-)

I have knee and footsie troubles myself, so I too am hoping that removing the extra weight will resolve those problems. With 32 pounds gone, I can already feel a slight bit of relief!