Orthopedic report

[unixronin]

Today's medical appointment was the orthopedist, who took a fresh set of X-rays of my knees, and upon examining them, more or less said "Your knees are fucked."  The cartilage in my knees is breaking down due to traumatic arthritis, and there's not a whole heck of a lot that can be done about it.  As a temporary measure to try to reduce pain and inflammation, he gave me a large shot of cortisone into my right knee, whereupon I promptly threw up my lunch a few minutes later (a reaction which completely mystifies me, because I've never had a nausea reaction to a shot before).

If the knee pain persists and is still present in six weeks (which I fully expect it will be), there's apparently a succession of progressively more drastic measures that can be taken.  I assume that progression ends with total knee replacement.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Aye, the folding green is in short supply, though pain tolerance I have in abundance.

I don't know if acupuncture is covered, and in any case, I haven't found it particularly efficacious when I've tried it. I know chiropractic is not covered. The chiropractor I've been seeing lately for evaluation proposed a course of what amounts to controlled traction, but I'm not convinced it would work, and we can't afford $1800 anyway, even if we were sure of success. I miss Todd Bragg, he knew how to put my spine back into shape. On the other hand, the X-rays this guy took clearly show the problem: my sacrum is rotated back about 15° relative to where it should be.