Hello everyone

TwinCam88

Hello you guys, Shaun here in Lincolnshire. Back in 1977 I had a serious motorcycle accident that really smashed me up. 41 years later I now have severe osteoarthritis in my left knee. I now have to walk with a stick if I go anywhere more than a few metres and never really knew just how painful it would all become. 59 years old at the mo and feel way too young for this kind of nonsense. I guess this is the price we pay for acting like idiots when we are really just kids. I guess I am really looking for advice and guidance.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

Lovely to meet you, sorry the osteoarthritis in your knee is proving difficult to deal with.

There could be very good news, any 59 you could be offered a total knee replacement (TKR) if you qualify which could restore you to previous health!

I’m linking to a booklet that explains osteoarthritis which covers the causes, treatments and living with arthritis

https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/conditions/osteoarthritis-of-the-knee/

If you want any specific advice post on here and I’m sure you will find one or more of our members has already solved it and is willing to share!

Keep posting to let us know how you are doing

Take care
Yvonne x

dreamdaisy

Hello, it's nice to meet you and I am sorry you have had to find us. I can't help that much as my days of just one knee being affected are long gone and I have two kinds of arthritis. I began aged 37 and am now 59 so hav plenty of experience under my belt some of which may be of relevance.

Of the two I have I prefer the OA as it is much more honest in how it presents. One aspect is within my control - the weather - but other aspects are manageable. I know that if I overdo things there will be payback so always stop when I think I could do more and I have also learned over the years that acidic foods aggravate it so I think twice before having a pickle or two! OA affects both ankles, both knees and both hips so I'm in a spot if bother! DD

TwinCam88

Thank you so much for your replies. Regarding a knee replacement, all I can add is that my left femur is way out of shape leading to my knee being very badly deformed. I have been told that a replacement may be possible but is unlikely. My left leg is also almost two inches shorter than my right due to the mess my femur is in. You gotta laugh !

dreamdaisy

Gawd, I hadn't realised how tired I was when I wrote that garbled reply, I am so sorry. :oops:

Obviously I cannot control the weather and that is the thing that has the greatest impact. Do you find things worse in the cold and damp? Here's a radical thought, if your femur is such a message I wonder if a hip and knee could be done, fixing both to the straightest bit? I am not a surgeon or a doc but unless one asks one does not necessarily get . . . . DD

TwinCam88

Not really sure about what could possibly be done as the only medical advice I have been given is to keep taking paracetamol. With regard to the weather, OMG...! Tell me about it..! October/November time is the very worst. As it cools down and becomes really damp up goes the level of pain. This whole thing has only become really bad since 2016 due to a job I was doing around 2014 in which I was expected to carry dirty great buckets of coal and coal briquets. Considering I have always been a lab analyst I tolerated this job for four months but then left for fear of ending up in a wheelchair.

TwinCam88

Interesting you say about acidic food. For most of my life I have had an intolerance to too much acid constantly having to resort to Rennie tablets but I had never even thought about the connection with my knee. I have a huge addiction to Asian food especially Indian curry. Would that be likely to cause major issues..?

TwinCam88

Interestingly, back in 1977 whilst I was being taken care of in casualty, I was warned before having an emergency operation to save my left leg that it may not be there when I woke from the op. With hindsight, it may have been much easier had the leg been amputated as now I would not be presented with this situation.

dreamdaisy

I was born with eczema so have had to manage my diet for many years, a problem which intensified when the asthma began aged seven (to this day and despite medication meringue can cause an attack of wheezes so I don't eat it). Many on here (usually those who are new to it) have altered their diets in an attempt to reduce / eradicate symptoms but it can take months for any difference to be felt and things have have to be eliminated for months and slowly reintroduced so one can conclude if they help or harm. Being a patient patient is a challenge, we live in an age of expecting instant results because that is the presented norm: take this and your cold will vanish, follow this diet and you will lose ten stone in a fortnight. Nah, you won't. We are what we eat, any excessive intake of even good things may harm the body but usually people don't have to think about it. I know there's a link for me - and it's always food you like because you don't eat the stuff you don't like, do you? The only fruit I could safely eat as a child was bananas. YUK. (This was back in the sixties when docs knew nothing of allergies and intolerances.)

There is not much to be done in medical terms for OA, it is a case of take the pain relief until a certain level of damage a reached and then surgery may become an option. There's not much to be done in medical terms for the auto-immune kinds either, that's a case of taking potentially very harmful medication to control disease activity. Once joint damage is done it cannot be undone unless one is fortunate enough to have the right kind of arthritis in the right sort of joints. It is up to us, the patient, to manage our condition as best we can by keeping our weight at a reasonable level to help slow the progression of the disease, eating a good diet for our over-all health, keep sensibly hydrated, exercising appropriately and pacing ourselves to better manage our pain levels.

OA is a very common condition, around ten million people in the UK have arthritis with the majority having OA. You could have all four limbs amputated and get in in the spine - wherever there's a joint there's potential for arthritis. Neither is it the sole preserve of the elderly which those who don't have it so blithely assume. DD

stickywicket

A somewhar belated hello from me :oops:

Re food - I think all you can do is suck it and see. Keep a food diary and, if anything seems to make it worse, try dropping it from yóur diet. Of course, with Asian food there are so many spices etc that it would be hard to work out if a particular one is involved. I don't find anything makes enough of a difference to warrant dropping it altogether.

As for new knee joints - many hospitals can only do straightforward replacements. (I'm currently waiting on Edinburgh to get in touch re replacing a failing THR ie total hip replacement.) My local hospital is good but can't do the tricky ones.

However, if you can currently manage on paracetamol I think they'll prefer you to carry on carrying on for a while yet

TwinCam88

OK, sorry but haven't been in here for a while. With regard to foods and possible contraindications with arthritis, the only thing I have found through practice is dairy. I do not know why but it causes all kinds of bloomin problems including migraine. I have also been advised to avoid citrus as there is a suggestion it may cause joint problems. This has come from people I know who have related issues including my own partner, Sue.

dreamdaisy

Citrus is an obvious one as it is acidic, dairy is a well-known trigger of all kinds of intolerant reactions; in me it creates excessive catarrh and can also lead to skin rashes. OA is not proven to be fully auto-immune in cause but someone with OA can also develop an over-activeimmune system which triggers these responses but not an auto-immune arthritis. It's all fun and games. :roll: DD