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Okay, no wonder my knee was hurting! I hadn't had x-rays since last year before the torn menisci were removed. In the past year, things have changed inside my knee. There is no cartilage left to separate the upper and lower leg bones, so part of my knee (fortunately not all of it) is bone-on-bone.
So I had a cortisone shot today, and tomorrow I will be fitted for a load-shifting brace that will force me to put my weight on my knee at a different angle. It will take the pressure off the part where there's no cartilage, and I can start wearing out the part where there is still some cartilage left. Then after a few years, when that cartilage is gone, too, I will have a total knee replacement.
I meet with the brace guy tomorrow, and he said he'd build me a brace that would allow me to walk and garden. I probably am not going to be able to do much more than that. I can take the brace off and swim, but I can't go to the gym and work out my legs on machines. No running, no stair stepper, none of that kind of stuff. But I can still lose weight by walking and eating right! And I will!
Tomorrow I go back to see the orthopedic surgeon again, this time about my neck and right shoulder that are still sore after my ice skating fall in February. I suspect upper body workouts are also going to be out, at least for a while, because I can't even pull a few weeds in my garden without getting intense pain afterwards.
I'll let you guys know what the doc says tomorrow...
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