No. You can barely walk with no pain if your leg muscle and joint are truly deteriorated. When the doctor is marketing knee replacement to you, they will contend your knee is “bone on bone”. That’s the phrase they use all the time and then show you an X-ray or some other test. And of course that test is assumed to be 100% accurate. That is questionable.

Symptoms of cartilage damage in a joint include:

• joint pain – this may continue even when resting and worsen when you put weight on the joint. It’s actually muscle and soft tissue pain. Bones can’t hurt. The nerves innervate TISSUE
• swelling – this may not develop for a few hours or days.
• stiffness.
• a clicking or grinding sensation.
• the joint locking, catching, or giving way.

My patient is missing three of these symptoms.

• Many times he’s said, “It doesn’t actually hurt that much. Just once in a while.” And he can run across the street. If you can walk, or partly run to your car, you don’t need a knee replacement. As I said in my previous post, my patient’s gastrocnemius muscle was a stone slab. I released it in three treatments and when he was in yesterday he said he was impressed and how much better he felt. He can walk up stairs with no pain.
• He has no swelling and never has. In addition, his patella moves perfectly.
• He has never said he has clicking or grinding

He still wants the surgery but like so many patients, I feel he has psychological reasons for wanting surgery other than needing it. He’ll get coddled and get more attention from his wife for starters. And maybe he’s bored and needs someplace to spend his money. He’s wealthy. He talks about spending money all the time and encourages me to spend more money. He’s getting the most expensive surgery you can get; robotic surgery; no doctor.

People are enamored with tech and bored with nature and their own bodies. I give up. I guess Tsunami’s and volcano eruptions, tornados, viruses, and thunder and lightning aren’t naturally exciting enough. Tech is more fun. And women have childbirth to keep us entertained when we get bored. So…go figure. Humans are very irrational about their bodies.

I think he just doesn’t want to give me credit for keeping him out of surgery. He thinks what I do is simple and to impress him it has to be complicated. I’ve had 22 years of that now.