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swihartcaringhands1638
swihartcaringhands1638 Posts: 5 Member
edited January 11 in Introduce Yourself
Hello Everyone!

Just a quick note. My R knee decided to let me know I’m 60 years old & overweight. I don’t want a total knee replacement…..SO here I am!

Thanks for sharing any advice for me in advance. I’m grateful to all of you!

Replies

  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,926 Member
    Welcome!

    I wouldn't want a knee replacement either. I'd suggest setting some challenging but attainable goals that you can measure and that have a deadline. I suggest using the tools here to help track your progress and plan on how to proceed. Mostly I'd suggest that when you get started, you STICK TO IT. If you have a bad day, that's OK. We all do. Just get back after it. I'd also suggest you take it slow, especially if you have a creaky knee. Definitely go slow.

    You also might peruse some of the "Most Useful Posts" here on the discussion groups like:
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,720 Member
    Boy, do I hear you about that!

    Welcome: I think you're on the right track.

    That's based on my personal experience:

    My orthopedist told me there was a knee replacement in my future, too, but that I wasn't burning any bridges putting it off until it prevented me doing all the things I wanted/needed to do, or the pain became intolerable. At that stage, there was discomfort most of the time, and actual pain probably a couple of weeks in a typical month, sometimes to the point of waking me up at night.

    He gave me a cortisone shot, and I convinced him to refer me to physical therapy. He told me it wouldn't fix the knee, but I told him I wanted to learn to walk and navigate stairs in ways that would reduce future stress on the knees, then he was willing to do the referral. The PT did help reduce the speed at which I'd been making things worse.

    Not super long after, I finally committed to lose weight (at age 59) for a variety of health reasons I won't belabor here. I was class 1 obese at the start. I joined MFP to help me lose weight, which turned out to be a great plan for me. In just under a year, I'd lost 50-some pounds, down to a healthy weight.

    Even part way through weight loss, my knee pain started improving, both in severity and frequency. By the time I'd been at goal weight for a while, continuing to now (age 68), my knee pain had greatly reduced. It's now occasionally uncomfortable, and quite rarely actually painful . . . that's a huge change.

    I'm sure that getting stronger (cautiously) has also helped, by creating better muscular support around my knees. (I've been super cautious about what I do, figuring out which things I could do without pain, which might be uncomfortable while doing them but helpful in the long run while not making the overall situation worse, and which were going to cause continuing problems. Of course I ruled out that latter set of things as soon as I figured it out, and kept doing the others.
    (I'm betting the exact things would be individual, so I'm not being specific.)

    I'm sure I'll still need a knee replacement someday, but I've already deferred it for over a decade since that initial orthopedic consultation, and my pain level remains substantially lower in severity/frequency than it was back then. The only true medical intervention was that one cortisone shot years back.

    I'm cheering for you to succeed with your weight loss goal, in the hope it'll help you as much as it's helped me. If you can cautiously strengthen the surrounding musculature, that may also offer improvements. (If you can get a physical therapy referral, that can be a good place to start.)

    Best wishes!

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