These things do happen sometimes
Last week I had my knees xrayed, and I got a copy to bring home.
My first impression was that my knees were a little worse than before. Then I looked at the old ones again.
My knees are better than before. Not a lot, but really noticeable. In the old xrays my left knee bones are touching and the right ones are touching over a significant area. In the new ones the left bones are nearly touching and the right ones are barely touching. That's a real difference.
I don't know whether that means the cartilage has been repairing itself, or whether the cartilage is less compressed than it was a year and a half ago. Until recently the received knowledge was that cartilage doesn't repair itself: now it's considered that cartilage rarely repairs itself.
I also am not sure about function: I am having a hard time comparing my function now with my function then. I wouldn't consider a full-time job getting on the floor with babies now. But that might be that I'm much more aware of the difference between being well and not being well. Also, I'm using the walking sticks a lot of the time, and I didn't have them then, but it's also partly because I am reluctant to give up the speed the walking sticks give me (with a walking stick I can walk fast enough to raise my pulse and get short of breath if I want to, something I have not been able to do for years, since long before I even knew there was something going on with my knees). Folk dancing is the one measure where I'm sure I've had improvement in function (though not necessarily in stamina).
I am sure about pain. I have not been kept awake by pain but once or twice in the last eight months. I can go a week or more without significant pain at all.
In any case, it means that the current strategy is to continue with as much physical therapy as I can manage, and not consider surgery as an immediate option (though it's still in the range of future possibilities).
My first impression was that my knees were a little worse than before. Then I looked at the old ones again.
My knees are better than before. Not a lot, but really noticeable. In the old xrays my left knee bones are touching and the right ones are touching over a significant area. In the new ones the left bones are nearly touching and the right ones are barely touching. That's a real difference.
I don't know whether that means the cartilage has been repairing itself, or whether the cartilage is less compressed than it was a year and a half ago. Until recently the received knowledge was that cartilage doesn't repair itself: now it's considered that cartilage rarely repairs itself.
I also am not sure about function: I am having a hard time comparing my function now with my function then. I wouldn't consider a full-time job getting on the floor with babies now. But that might be that I'm much more aware of the difference between being well and not being well. Also, I'm using the walking sticks a lot of the time, and I didn't have them then, but it's also partly because I am reluctant to give up the speed the walking sticks give me (with a walking stick I can walk fast enough to raise my pulse and get short of breath if I want to, something I have not been able to do for years, since long before I even knew there was something going on with my knees). Folk dancing is the one measure where I'm sure I've had improvement in function (though not necessarily in stamina).
I am sure about pain. I have not been kept awake by pain but once or twice in the last eight months. I can go a week or more without significant pain at all.
In any case, it means that the current strategy is to continue with as much physical therapy as I can manage, and not consider surgery as an immediate option (though it's still in the range of future possibilities).