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

[bfly.livejournal.com]

Is the other knee foo due to compensating for the injury to the smashed leg, or was it injured at the same time? I can't remember how badly the other leg was banged up.

That's a real bummer, and I know some insurance is reluctant to do knee replacements on younger folks because "they wear out." My mother-in-law has been fighting that battle... at this rate, by the time the $*(^ insurance company feels confident she'll outlive her knee replacements, she won't be active enough to need them.

smashed

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Both knees were smashed. One has one pin and the other has 3 pins, IIRR. I know one it was basically a pile of rubble and Dr. Golod sort of jig-saw puzzled it back together with bone cement.