Living With Knee Pain

1- My hip went bad. And that's when they toldme I had the osteoarthritis. He said, "Yeah, you've got it in basically all your major joints. When you lose the cartilage, the knees form little grooves, that they ride in when it bends. And if you make a wrong move,it'll jump out of that ridge. And when it does, it's likesomebody sticks a knife in it, and it'll swell up and hurt. So, for years I took aprescription anti-inflammatory. Almost two years ago,I had a heart attack, and had open-heart surgery, and the doctors took me off of the prescriptionanti-inflammatory at that point. I asked them what other options we had, and they told me I couldtake shots in my knees, that would hopefully would give me some relief and would help. So we started doing that at that point, and they told me that I could take them as frequently as every three months. And of course, stretchit out as far as I could. In the last two years,I have lost 80 pounds. For every pound you lose, it takes about three poundsof pressure off your knees. Between that and the shots, it has really been,basically, pretty manageable. You need to learn, ifyou're going to lift stuff, you need to learn theright way to lift it. It makes a difference toyour knees and your back. It doesn't hurt to thinkabout what's going to happen 20, 30, 40 years down the road. Anybody that's been toldthat they have osteoarthritis needs to talk to an orthopedic doctor about what they can do tomanage it, minimize it, to make it work. If you're eventually going to have, have to have surgery or replacement, just stretch it out, youknow, as long as you can, before you have to,actually have to do it. As far as my knees are concerned, I have seen about three doctors, and they all have the same opinion. It's just a matter of when. And basically, the whenis dependent upon me. When it gets to the point where I can't do the things I wantto do because of my knees.