Bad Knees??? Take heart!!!

paddlemom

My really bad knees were the biggest motivation to my starting MFP - before I started, I had to take the 4 steps up to my front door one at a time. I have asked on here before if anyone with severe osteoarthritis had noticed any improvement as they got fitter and lost weight.

I'm here to tell you now that you do! YOU DO!!! Between biking and swimming I have noticed recently that I am climbing stairs more easily, so I decided to challenge myself at work and see how far I could tolerate it. Well, on Friday I climbed 7 flights and ran out of stairs and I climbed 11 flights today!!!! I could have kept going, but my cardio hasn't caught up to my knees. I found the more I climbed the looser my knees got.

I am so excited - I used to have a real stair phobia, but now I will make a daily climb at work part of my routine!!!

nolachick

thats awesome great job! my goal is to be able to walk up those 15 flights of stairs to work everyday without gasping for air. lol.

lizzys

yes :laugh: i"M forty eight bad knees broke my ankle in febuary and now i"m doing walk away the pounds tryinh to do 4 inch stair step thats hard because I'M fat. i was walking around my house like a 80 year old women everyday it gets better now i walk like i"m 70 and soon i will feel better than what i did in my twentys. i smoked than. just never let yourself get down i know so many people that give up. and it just makes it worse but we do feel pain:

iplayoutside19

I know what you mean.

I've noticed activity breeds activity.

enygmatic1

I was advised that I needed knee surgury but declined and my knee is getting better and better the more I work out. You couldn't have hit the nail on the head any more accurate!! Good job on the stairs by the way...that's awesome!!!

PatB52

That's really good to hear. I don't think my knee problems are osteoarthritis but I'm hoping that shedding the weight will help with whatever is causing the pain. I'm about to the end of my outdoor cycling season but hope to find someplace to swim through the winter.

paddlemom

I should tell you that I had both knees scoped and debrided for the osteo - one last fall and the other this summer. While I have bone on bone osteo, they both also had some meniscule tears which caused a really sharp pain when I stressed them - like climbing stairs.

Meniscal tears are kind of like hang-nails. When that little flap is turned up, it's like a knife in your knee every time it grabs, but when it's laying down, it doesn't hurt at all, so you think it's all just getting better. No amount of exercise will help make that pain go away! It won't heal on it's own. But once the Dr. scoped them and cleaned them out, he assured me that with exercise to strengthen the joint support and losing weight it would continue to get better.

If the pain you are feeling is sharp in the joint with movement under load, and you have good and bad days with that, then I would go check it out. I am so glad that I just didn't assume it was ALL osteo, or I never would have been able to get to where I am now.

BTW, the surgery was pretty non invasive and by the 3rd week I was on my bicycle again, so you aren't laid up for weeks!