A few months ago I started having pain in my right knee. It was worse after I exercised, but seemed to improve with rest and ibuprofen. After 6 weeks or so of this I finally went to my regular doctor to have her check it out. She sent me to physical therapy and told me to give it a few more weeks.
Physical therapy and more rest did not significantly improve my knee, so I finally went to an orthopedist. Took an MRI and suspected that I had torn the meniscus. Scheduled arthroscopic surgery to see what was going on in there.
Turns out the meniscus is fine, but the cartilage above it was all frayed. He cleaned that up and now I'm slowly on the mend from surgery. What I'm dealing with now is the diagnosis I got: primary osteoarthritis. Arthritis at 32?!
There are things that I can do to slow the progress (lose weight, strengthen muscles, avoid impact activities), but the degeneration will happen all over my body. I will probably need more surgery in time and I can expect pain in my joints for the rest of my life.
I have always been active and strong and this is hard for me to adjust to. I want to be stronger than this. Because this is genetic, I fear for what I may have passed on to my kids.
Right now I am trying to accept that we are who we are. This is my life to live, and live it to the best of my abilities. My abilities may not be what I thought they were, my limitations are different than what I wanted for myself. I want to feel empowered by the knowledge I have now, but I can't help but feel like I've let everyone down somehow. I am trying to be optimistic, but it's hard right now.
