Damage knees

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AnLes
AnLes Member Posts: 6
in Living with arthritis

Cant get knee replacement on NHS

Anyone going through this. Am in severe pain

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  • Ellen
    Ellen Moderator Posts: 1,628
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    Good Morning @AnLes

    A vey warm welcome to the Versus Arthritis online Community. We have several people here experiencing severe pain with their knees like yourself. I wonder why you can't have your knee replaced on the NHS? Is this to do with waiting lists or are you being told your knee isn't 'bad enough' yet for example.

    While you wait for our members to reply I will attach a couple of links which may be of use to you:

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

    I am presuming it is Osteoarthritis you have and apologise if I am wrong.

    and this link about surgery:

    https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/treatments/surgery/knee-replacement-surgery/

    There is useful information about alternatives to surgery too if it helps.

    Best wishes

    Ellen

  • AnLes
    AnLes Member Posts: 6
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    Ellen Thanks for your reply.MY knees (both ) are severely damage according to the different consultant / member of their team i meet when i eventually do get appointments after looking at my xray results, My last appointment was in March last month. I have suffered with this for over ten years , its now got to the point where am house bound, any few steps is agony. There are days when i think to myself if my life is worth living as i have no quality of life, it was when i was having one of those day few weeks ago that i called to talk to someone at arthritis UK. If i had got the money to go Private it would have been done but there is no way i can have that much money.

    NHS Consultants/ member of their team say i meet all the criteria but My bMI is high. This is what i have begin hearing for the past five years, and thats the NHS excuse for not operating my knees. If i was thirty Stone and need a Gastric bypass it will e done. bMI is not an issue. but begin cripple y Arthirts bMI is an excuse.

  • YvonneH
    YvonneH Member Posts: 1,076
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    Dear @AnLes

    I know this is hard, I have been in your position, and it sounds like an excuse to put us at the back of a queue for surgery. There are reasons for what the surgeons are saying. Do try to look at this objectively, as if you were reading this to help a friend who needed an op.

    I too was in pain. Probably I was overweight before my knee was so bad. Carrying too much weight is a prime cause for joints to fail. Probably, like me, your joint was failing before you gained so much weight but that doesn’t mean that your weight now isn’t affecting the problems in your knees.

    Surgery carries risk, we know that. Being overweight increases that risk because our hearts, lungs etc have to work harder to keep us going. It is also more likely that we will have other issues like high blood pressure and diabetes. If you have any similar secondary condition they increase you risk too. So what we thought of as one risk is now 2 or 3 or more

    Too much weight makes it harder for the surgeon and his team, finding veins and such, amount of anaesthetic and so on.

    Then there is recovery after surgery. Infection, wound healing rates and if course if we weigh less we are putting less pressure on our new joint and helping it to last as long as possible.

    It is so hard to lose weight, it takes determination and it's still hard. You can do it though and you have reasons now and you need that knee/s really badly. Even without exercise you can do this. You can start a discussion and get fellow members to help you, and maybe some member friends will join you on this quest - having people on your side, makes a huge distance.

    I hope this helps, just a little, I' happy to be with you on your journey, I have gently put on weight over lockdown that I need to lose

    Take care

    Yvonne x

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