Knee Pain: It's All About Maintenance

The first time I felt like there was something wrong with my knee was, as I remember, was in my 40s. I was actually playing in a tennis tournament on clay, and it felt like my knee was going one way and I was going the other. So I found a doctor who was an orthopedic doctor, and they X-rayed my knee. I don't remember exactly what they told me, but I knew that I had some arthritis there and that the cartilage was not what it should be. As I remember, I had knee injections that helped, but from that time forward, I wore some type of brace because that stabilized my knee, or gave me a more stable feeling. I did not want to stop playing tennis. The physical therapist gave me a series of exercises to help strengthen the knee, and the muscle above the knee, because that's what they told me was key, that if I strengthened the muscle above the knee, it would help take the pressure off the knee. Some of those are straight leg raises where you contract your muscle, and you raise your leg to the count of five, and then you lower. There are a lot of different leg exercises you can do, but when you're pressed for time, that's the one that's critical. I have done the knee injections for approximately 10 years. I take a series of five every six months. And in my left knee, which is the knee that's caused me the most problem--but I have started them in my right knee as well as a preventive measure. The pain before the injections is, it varies. It's sometimes like a stabbing pain, it's sometimes a soreness that you feel on the top, and beneath, or behind your knee. The analogy that was given to me is that it's like WD-40 for a rusty joint, and that's what I always think about. It is, again, a preventive kind of maintenance thing that I feel like I need to do because that, I think, is keeping me from having to even think about a knee replacement at this point. As far as my everyday life is concerned, the pain that I have in my knee has caused me to make some modifications in what I do. I make fewer trips up and down the stairs at my house, and I try not to sit for a very long period of time because the longer I sit, the more difficult it is... I find that the pain in my knee makes it stiff, and I have to be careful about that first step sometimes when I get up in the morning. And I know this not only from my knee, but also from my back, and I just want to make sure that I'm on sound footing before I take that first step. My advice to people who are just beginning to experience pain is to not ignore it. I would find a doctor that could diagnose what is going on with that, and give them a plan for preventing and for maintenance. I laughingly say we're like an old car. You have to do the maintenance to make sure it keeps running. And my goal is to keep not exactly running, but functioning.