Any suggestions

PhilD

Hi all, been suffering from osteoarthritis in my knees for several years now, consultant and doctors are useless and pain management team are a joke. Pain so bad I requested a double amputation, consultant wrote in my notes he thinks I'm joking.i even considered doing it myself with a chainsaw.

Morphine patches don't work, neither do the new lidocaine ones, dihydrocodeine works but they won't give it as it could be bad for me,lol.i,m getting about 3hours sleep a night, so surely that can't be healthy.

I'm worn out, dealing with this as well as my bipolar and PTSD, I'm looking for suggestions as I have completely given up on the NHS

Kind regards Phil

noddingtonpete

Hello @PhilD and welcome to the Community. You are now among new friends who are a supportive group and happy to share experiences. I hope that they will connect with you soon to share their support and hopefully give you some hints and tips as to how to help you. There are people on here who can likely understand what you are going through.

I've put a couple of links in below which may be of some use, but please use the Community and the Helpline to ask questions whenever you need to. We are not medically trained but have a lot of experience.

https://escape-pain.org/i-have-knee-hip-pain/

and

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

Please keep posting and let us know how you are progressing and I am sure that others will connect with you to share their support and experience.

With best wishes

Peter (moderator)

jonr

Hello and welcome @PhilD from a fellow knackered knee sufferer.

You are clearly at the end of your tether, it's hard coming to terms with the fact there are limitations in what health professionals can do to help sufferers like us. So much is down to us to manage our own pain and improve our quality of life. There aren't any magic bullets though and there's so many different supplements, lotions and potions out there it's hard to know where to start.

I'm sure you've heard all the advice about physio and exercise targeted at building the muscles and tendons around your knees to support them and having been diligent about that myself, I can testify that it does work but it not only takes decent pain management to do that but it also takes many months of hard graft.

There is a lot of info on this website about how we can manage our condition, after a lot of experimentation these are what work for me:

Acupuncture - yep, about the best thing I've found to reduce my pain to a background level that's tolerable. It took about 8 weekly session to kick in and now I go once a month.

CBD capsules. Derived from Hemp, this is a good natural painkiller and helps with sleep

A TENS machine - provides instant relief and in my case, the effects last for several hours

A deep tissue massaging gun. Do you get tendon "pings" from your hamstring and ACL, or locks? One of these rubbed up and down the back of your legs might help

Boswellia, Capsicum and Peperine capsules - natural anti-inflammatories

Olives and Olive Oil. Yep - contain a substance quite like Ibuprofen, get 'em down you!

FlexiSeq gel - a Godsend for reducing crunching and grinding

Capsaicin Cream - good for reducing stiffness

Elasticated knee supports to help compress and aid stability

Co-Codemol. My GP won't prescribe this but if I overdo it up the gym or on a long bike ride I'll pop a couple of these.

Hope some of these help but bear in mind that what works for me, may not for you.

Jon