Knee Osteoarthritis

Regular exercise. I have had three knee surgeries and the only thing that keeps my knees from locking up and hurting is staying active. DDPY yoga helped me increase my flexibility and regain mobility.

debrakgoogins wrote: »

Regular exercise. I have had three knee surgeries and the only thing that keeps my knees from locking up and hurting is staying active. DDPY yoga helped me increase my flexibility and regain mobility.

Yep. I'm incredibly lucky that my arthritis is on the mild side, so I did a few months of physical therapy to help address it and now it's just consistent exercise. If I start slacking off it's very noticeable. I'll go from being active and walking normally to basically hobbling around in pain like I should have a walker but lost it somewhere.

Ive been that person who reacted to the knee injection worst experience almost 4 months of knee 3 times the size and was sent immediately for a TKR but due to injection had worst scar tissue buid up that is what causes the most stiffness and pain. It must be worked out and continued as a lifestyle to reduce pain. I have found the knee is great but weather still causes stiffness and pain in muscles and tendons which are what I found out the triggers and cracking noise you hear. This is why exercise is the only healer. And riding a bike is the. best but not all stand up bikes work sometimes you need the ones where the legs stretch out not down which is what I had to use to get any success but now that I have gone through the replacement I totally know the muscles and tendons are the real cause of the pain.

Another vote for physical therapy. I have some knee OA plus at least one torn meniscus. I had one cortisone shot to deal with acute discomfort (which had been interfering with sleep). That gave me wiggle room for doing PT, comfortably. My doctor at first didn't want to do the referral, because he said it couldn't solve the problem (which is true), but when I told him I wanted it in order to learn to walk and (especially) climb stairs in ways that would reduce future knee stress and further defer surgery, he bought in and sent me.

It's true that for many people, strengthening muscles around the knee can be helpful. That was not the problem, for me (have very strong legs from my sport), and it may not be the only problem even for those whom strengthening can help. A good physical therapist can diagnose where the issues are, and help you solve them. So, for me, in addition to the walking/stairs stuff, mine determined that I had tight muscles in my hips that were contributing to my problems, and gave me exercises to improve that. It was really helpful!

I assume it goes without saying that if you're carrying excess body weight, it's extremely likely that weight loss can help reduce discomfort/pain (not true 100% universally, of course). Weight loss took me from a point where discomfort was pretty common and actual pain had periodic episodes, to a point where now, I have some discomfort sometimes, but that's usually about it. *Huge* improvement, from the weight loss on top of the PT.

Also, if I start having a little more discomfort, I start icing my knees after every workout (even if the acute pain hasn't increased from the workout itself). Not sure where you live, but in my part of the US, the chain drugstores sell a velcro-strap gel pack that you can keep in the freezer, and strap on for a few minutes after a workout. These are great. I like to put a towel next to my skin if I'm not wearing long pants, and

I'd also second the recommendation to figure out which forms of activity really aggravate your knees, and which are more manageable. This can differ somewhat depending on the extent and location of the OA damage. (My rowing double partner and I both have knee OA, but different locations. Our PT and our treatment (by one and the same doctor!) was quite different. For me, straight line hinging motions are pretty manageable (so I row, bike, spin) but things with impact or knee torque are a Bad Plan (I don't run, do aerobics or martial arts anymore, do fast-break games such as racket or ball sports, etc.)

Some people have told me they find supplements helpful, or a diet high in anti-inflammatories (basically, good overall nutrition with lots of veggies/fruits), but I'll let others fill you in if they've found supplements useful. (I don't take some of the common joint-related ones because I'm vegetarian.)

Hope you find some things that help!