total knee replacement surgery

[Dantheman]

So altachic got her knees x-rayed last week:




She's 39. Only question seems to be when a TKR will/should happen, and what she can do now to delay the inevitable and improve her quality of life in the meantime. Thoughts? Has anyone here had a TKR at ~40? What non-surgical, non-big$$$$ (I'm looking at you, stem cells), effective options are there? I want to do everything possible to help her, but also don't want to throw good money after bad and waste money that would be better spent on the TKR.

[Dantheman]

Anyone know anything about AMIT? Someone she knows recommended it.

http://amitmethod.com/


edit: oh fuck me, they have homeopathy and prolozone sections on their site:
http://amitmethod.com/homeopathy/
http://amitmethod.com/prolozone/

I fucking hate pseudoscience so goddamn much.

[Norseman]

Man there's a lot going on in that x-ray. Vibes to her

[plugboots]

So altachic got her knees x-rayed last week:




She's 39. Only question seems to be when a TKR will/should happen, and what she can do now to delay the inevitable and improve her quality of life in the meantime. Thoughts? Has anyone here had a TKR at ~40? What non-surgical, non-big$$$$ (I'm looking at you, stem cells), effective options are there? I want to do everything possible to help her, but also don't want to throw good money after bad and waste money that would be better spent on the TKR.

I'm 59 and that is almost exactly my left knee. Same bone on bone, same arthritic weird bump next to it. I got nothin'. I'm postponing TKR till I have to do it due to pain management.

[Mofro261]

Anyone know anything about AMIT?

http://amitmethod.com/

looks reasonably priced if you want to give it a try but from those pics the issue is early onset arthritis, not an issue with muscle activation? I'm still skeptical that kinesiology or chiropactric manipulation will do much for arthritis.

SadlyI have real issues with early onset arthritisin my left knee - my doc sez TKR will be in my future in ~15-20 yrs and I highly recommend Bauerfiend genutrain braces for this.

[Mofro261]

Added more hardware to the R in May.

[Dantheman]

looks reasonably priced if you want to give it a try but from those pics the issue is early onset arthritis, not an issue with muscle activation? I'm still skeptical that kinesiology or chiropactric manipulation will do much for arthritis.

She has some atrophy issues in the bad knee leg (even obvious in the xray if you look the muscle mass in each leg) and imbalance issues from always favoring one side. It was sold to her as a kind of more intensive PT that could help correct the atrophy and imbalance issues. But, these guy also believe in bullshit like homeopathy, so "skeptical" doesn't even begin to describe my current opinion. They're bullshit artist scammers until proven otherwise.

[Dantheman]

I highly recommend Bauerfiend genutrain braces for this.

What model do you have? Looks like there's a few knee options.

[Mofro261]

What model do you have? Looks like there's a few knee options.

The A3 is the one I like most. They are a little spendy~$100-200, but for me, miminal slippage and comfortable enough to wear all day.

Also, seriously- look in to Blood Flow Restriction Therapy for combatting atrophy. I did this 2x a week thru PT for the last ~3mos and it really worked for me to increase muscle mass post-ACL repair with low impact exercise. I'm going to buy a set since I got "graduated" from PT. Passive application is also possible.

[Shredhead]

I got mild relief from my first regiment of Orthovisic.
No so much from the second or third.

[Sinecure]

I just had my second TKR this summer. I've been skiing on the other one for two seasons.

[Sirshredalot]

So altachic got her knees x-rayed last week:




She's 39. Only question seems to be when a TKR will/should happen, and what she can do now to delay the inevitable and improve her quality of life in the meantime. Thoughts? Has anyone here had a TKR at ~40? What non-surgical, non-big$$$$ (I'm looking at you, stem cells), effective options are there? I want to do everything possible to help her, but also don't want to throw good money after bad and waste money that would be better spent on the TKR.

I'm sorry to read this.

My better half is on pace for something that looks like this. She's 34 and had a subluxated patella while ski touring last winter, revealing long term patella tracking problems. The recovery from the acute incident has been slow, though she has been busting her ass to rehab. She goes under the knife for a scope in two weeks. Her hope is to postpone TKR for as long as possible. We are considering stem cell/prp if she doesn't get the relief she wants from the scope. Long term, she's hoping to live her life comfortably with a coulle Advil after skiing until she's close to 50 than 40, but who the hell knows how it will play out.

To be honest, we read some of altachic's old gimp central knee posts and it gave my wife some hope that she could kick the can down the road for a while. I hope she's doing better soon.

I'm guessing from looking at this x-ray that altachic needs some sort of knee replacement/resurfacing sooner rather than later, but IANAD. In our talks with the docs here, we have heard tales of pro-level snowboard jibbers getting partial knee replacements in their late 20s and returning to hitting massive cheese wedges to hardpack, and of course we've talked to plenty of folks who have returned to skiing pain-free after decades of pain.

Before altachic makes the decision to go under the knife, she should get an opinion from the Rosenberg Cooley Metcalf clinic if she hasn't already. They deal with the US Ski Team and are up on all the latest.

[bourbonisgood]

So altachic got her knees x-rayed last week:




She's 39. Only question seems to be when a TKR will/should happen, and what she can do now to delay the inevitable and improve her quality of life in the meantime. Thoughts? Has anyone here had a TKR at ~40? What non-surgical, non-big$$$$ (I'm looking at you, stem cells), effective options are there? I want to do everything possible to help her, but also don't want to throw good money after bad and waste money that would be better spent on the TKR.

Assuming this has already been addressed, but here goes:
1) lateral unloader brace
2) massive, nauseating amounts of glut med/hip ER retraining
3) if any amount of uncontrolled pronation - some significant medial posting to assist in prevention of additional dynamic valgus

[plugboots]

we've talked to plenty of folks who have returned to skiing pain-free after decades of pain.

And I’ve talked to folks who still had pain post surgery, and skiing was groomers only at best.

[Dantheman]

subluxated patella while ski touring last winter, revealing long term patella tracking problems

Funny you should mention patellas, here's her other two views:






[/shudder]

Thanks for the Rosenberg clinic recommendation, we'll check that out.

[PB]

Wow.

Definitely shudderiffic.

[2FUNKY]

Bummer Dan. That’s going to be a long road. Hoping for the best man!

[detrusor]

Oh man, so sorry to hear it. Vibes to you


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[babybear]

My brother had knee replacement at 40yo and the ortho here said it was the youngest he had done
He was skeptical but overall he was very happy to have done it.
Prior to the surgery he was at the point of getting out on his snowboard maybe once or twice a season due to the pain. and he was a chef so then wd be on his feet all evening long
bottom line he was happy about the choice. He's probably not quite as active as altachic but he felt it improved his quality of life- he could do things more readily with his little kid etc

I guess the other con they presented was that he may have to replace it again when he's in his mid-late 60's but his rationale was that people have that stuff done at that age anyhow and he'd get more out of these next 25 yrs with the new knee

good luck and a positive is that due to your location you probably have access to excellent knee surgeons that consistently work with very active/ sports oriented patients

[Dantheman]

Thanks, b-bear. The prospect of a second replacement in 20-30 years gives me some pause since they have to remove some bone each time a new implant goes in and thus there's a limited number times you can redo it. But, you are right that we have easy access to a lot of great surgeons and she's going to get several opinions in the next 4-6 weeks so we'll see what they say.

[Woodsy]

So altachic got her knees x-rayed last week:




She's 39. Only question seems to be when a TKR will/should happen, and what she can do now to delay the inevitable and improve her quality of life in the meantime. Thoughts? Has anyone here had a TKR at ~40? What non-surgical, non-big$$$$ (I'm looking at you, stem cells), effective options are there? I want to do everything possible to help her, but also don't want to throw good money after bad and waste money that would be better spent on the TKR.

Not sure if you know Jamie from DPS. she skiied ALta when I lived there, Bird mostly now. She had a TKR on one leg she injured repeatedly (used to ski with NO ACLs) and is back kicking ass.

Will try and connect her to you & Liz.

Hope to see all yall this winter.

[powdork]

Funny thing happened on the way to my knee replacement, scheduled for October 30. About 10 days ago while hiking/patch skiing i noticed the knee wasn't telling me i had passed the time to reup my ibuprofen dose. That happened again the following day. Day after that I stopped taking it. No pain. The next day I pushed skiing and climbing without ibuprofen or pain. It's been 8 days since i've had nsaids or pain and yesterday I pushed things with a long hike out to ski with boots and skis on the pack (and more importantly a long downhill hike back), then climbing, then a lap on Corral loop all before an 8 hour shift on my feet. No pain.
Seems like getting the hardware out was all that was needed in my case.

[splat]

Did you do all that damage in the backcountry then ski out, powdork?

[powdork]

Sort of. Was able to ski a ways out on one ski since it was a long steady downhill. Then as we got closer to the trailhead hutchski put on her skins and pulled me. That was the bad part as it also got icy/chattery which hurt like a bitch even at 1mph.

[t-the-east]

Seems like getting the hardware out was all that was needed in my case.

That’s great news. Still really on the fence about the headwear removal, but I feel it. Constantly.
Not sure if there’s any time limit on getting the hardware removed. I’m at 7 months now, surgeon said anytime after this month he’d take it out if it bothered me. Leg still doesn’t fully straighten when I walk/hike, causing me to still have a slight limp.
Honestly, I’m terrified of the hardware removal process, but think it’s probably better for me in the long run.