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If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know I blew my knee out in 2020. After staining our back deck on my hands and knees, I walked down a step and bam… it felt like a rubber band snapped. Excruciating pain made me scream and it’s been a five year nightmare ever since.

The diagnosis was a deep root radial meniscus tear (the kind that never heals) and damage to my ACL.

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Swollen? Just a bit.

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I saw a doctor. Who gave me an X-ray and sent me to an orthopedist. Who scheduled an MRI.

After reading the MRI the orthopedist told me, and I quote..

“It will either heal or it won’t” (which was very helpful, Not!) shot me full of cortisone and sent me on my way.

I iced, I elevated, I compressed and after a while my pain dropped to a manageable level. Never gone, but I sucked it up and carried on. I tried to stay active though there were times my knee screamed uncle.

In early 2023 the pain was becoming a problem again so I saw another doctor, who sent me to another orthopedist, who shot me full of more cortisone and scheduled 8 weeks of physical therapy.

The deep tissue massage felt great, the exercises helped stretch a tendon which had shrunk a bit from inactivity, but it didn’t address the underlying problem.

By late 2023 I still had considerable pain and decided to try acupuncture.

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It immediately reduced the swelling and dropped my pain level back to manageable. But it’s not covered by insurance and gets expensive quite quickly, so I took a few months of treatments and called it good.

2024 saw good knee days and bad knee days… with me never knowing what triggered increased pain.

By 2025 I had given up the treadmill, push mowing the lawn and started dreading stairs. At this point walking down a flight took twice as long as it should and made me feel 100 years old. Swelling had returned and I experienced serious stiffness whenever I got up after sitting. I moaned, I groaned, I limped.

Which sent me back to acupuncture a few months ago. Again, the swelling was quickly reduced, the stiffness was gone and pain returned to a manageable level.

But then, I went to sleep.

In case you were wondering? Yes… it’s entirely possible to tweak a torn meniscus when rolling over in bed because I did it and woke up gasping in pain.

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Now I can’t bend my knee without cringing. Walking hurts. Sleeping hurts. Stairs? No can do. So I made another appointment with my doctor who will no doubt send me to another orthopedist and I’m guessing the knee replacement surgery I’ve been dreading is in my future.

Has anyone out there had it?

And if so, what was your experience?

If you have any advice or suggestions… I think I’m ready to listen.

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