A few weeks ago, I mentioned my troublesome knees. I saw my doctor in mid-December, and he recommended a referral to orthopedics and offered me a steroid injection to tide me over. I gratefully accepted the steroid injection.<\/p>\n
My doctor said orthopedics would probably want to fix the problem, and I asked him what he meant by that.\u00a0 He replied, “Total knee replacement.” We discussed whether I wanted to use the VA or my primary clinic.\u00a0 I decided to start with the VA, and if I’m not comfortable with what I find at the VA, I’ll seek a referral from my doctor to our clinic’s orthopedist.<\/p>\n
I knew the steroid injection was working when I realized I was noticing pain in my right knee as I walked out of the clinic. That same day, I stopped at the VA and made an appointment with my provider there to seek a referral to orthopedics. I had that appointment on Monday.<\/p>\n
The good news is I’m signed up for physical therapy. The less than good news is I am unlikely to meet the criteria for the VA to perform the procedure no matter how bad my knees are. The radiology technician said it looked like my knees hurt a lot (it’s not the first time I’ve heard that after people have looked at x-rays of my knees). I’m not old enough, and my weight is an issue. My provider indicated these factors are less stringent on the civilian side of medicine. I haven’t heard a definitive no, but once I do, I’ll talk to my doctor about the referral to the civilian orthopedist to see what he\/she says.<\/p>\n
I’m not anxious to rush into a knee replacement, but I’m concerned the state of my knees is beginning to cause problems in other joints, especially my right hip. I’m also unable to walk extended distances on a regular basis without significant pain. It definitely limits my mobility, which makes it difficult to get enough exercise to assist with weight loss efforts. I’m looking forward to the conversation, assuming I find someone willing to have it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few weeks ago, I mentioned my troublesome knees. I saw my doctor in mid-December, and he recommended a referral to orthopedics and offered me a steroid injection to tide me over. I gratefully accepted the steroid injection. My doctor said orthopedics would probably want to fix the problem, and …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}