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My Brag...


Zealot

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Considering that I have to have an MRI tomorrow and maybe realignment surgery on my left knee, I felt damn good!!

What's going on there, if you don't mind sharing? I've been dealing with knee issues for a couple of years now and am curious.

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I started ou

What's going on there, if you don't mind sharing? I've been dealing with knee issues for a couple of years now and am curious.

I started out the season fast and furious. Was mountain biking in the late winter and when I hit hills the road, I was using my SS exclusively standing on all the hills.. By June, I'd developed a fair amount if pain under my kneecap. I've got pretty good 'clicking' in both knees, but have for a long time. By July, I was back on my CDale and backing off the hills, doing flat rides. Often the pain got excruciating. So I got off the bike about 3 weeks ago when I woke up one night with my leg stuck and very painful and made an appt with the knee doc who repaired my wife's ACL. Did X-rays this Monday and they revealed my kneecaps sit moderately off to the outside of each knee where they are wearing on the cartilage on the backside of the kneecap. He explained the surgery to realign them involves cutting a groove in the bone the cap tendons and cartilage ride over to force the cap back into its normal position. But said recovery is about six weeks. Meniscus looks great and the bones are very healthy looking. He explained that he wanted to get the MRI to see if he can just go in and clean out any torn cartilage and started me on some stretching exercises to loosen my quads. He said I had amazing quads, especially for my age. Said guys my age typically show a bit of muscle loss. Yeah, docs say that to AARP candidates. ;-)

Asked what exercises to do. He said whatever is tolerable. But to keep stretching the quads and hams to loosen up the strain on the caps. I can do that. Cool!

And, at the end of July, I had a colonoscopy, because I was dealing with a bad bout of colitis, where they removed several polyps, found several ulcerations (which the doc is still concerned about), said there was diverticular issues and took quite a few tissue sample for biopsy. and I have a kidney stone lodged in my urethra. Was also told my spleen was enlarged when they did the initial ct scan. Good grief! Biopsies are clean though! Yay. Go back to that guy next month for follow up.

Sorry, more than you asked. But that's where I'm at.
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I started ou I started out the season fast and furious. Was mountain biking in the late winter and when I hit hills the road, I was using my SS exclusively standing on all the hills.. By June, I'd developed a fair amount if pain under my kneecap. I've got pretty good 'clicking' in both knees, but have for a long time. By July, I was back on my CDale and backing off the hills, doing flat rides. Often the pain got excruciating. So I got off the bike about 3 weeks ago when I woke up one night with my leg stuck and very painful and made an appt with the knee doc who repaired my wife's ACL. Did X-rays this Monday and they revealed my kneecaps sit moderately off to the outside of each knee where they are wearing on the cartilage on the backside of the kneecap. He explained the surgery to realign them involves cutting a groove in the bone the cap tendons and cartilage ride over to force the cap back into its normal position. But said recovery is about six weeks. Meniscus looks great and the bones are very healthy looking. He explained that he wanted to get the MRI to see if he can just go in and clean out any torn cartilage and started me on some stretching exercises to loosen my quads. He said I had amazing quads, especially for my age. Said guys my age typically show a bit of muscle loss. Yeah, docs say that to AARP candidates. ;-)

Asked what exercises to do. He said whatever is tolerable. But to keep stretching the quads and hams to loosen up the strain on the caps. I can do that. Cool!

And, at the end of July, I had a colonoscopy, because I was dealing with a bad bout of colitis, where they removed several polyps, found several ulcerations (which the doc is still concerned about), said there was diverticular issues and took quite a few tissue sample for biopsy. and I have a kidney stone lodged in my urethra. Was also told my spleen was enlarged when they did the initial ct scan. Good grief! Biopsies are clean though! Yay. Go back to that guy next month for follow up.

Sorry, more than you asked. But that's where I'm at.

OK. Thanks. It's not quite the same issue. Mine is that one of the tendons has loosened and pulls the knee cap to the outside. The surgery involved would cut the good tendon a little to try to match the looseness and get knee cap back in alignment.

 

The reason I asked is that it sounded like it could be similar to my issue and the first doctor (actually a Pysicians Assistant) told me about a surgery for it. But I decided to get a second opinion from the surgeon himself and he said that particular surgery had a horrible success rate and recommended against it.

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OK. Thanks. It's not quite the same issue. Mine is that one of the tendons has loosened and pulls the knee cap to the outside. The surgery involved would cut the good tendon a little to try to match the looseness and get knee cap back in alignment.
 
The reason I asked is that it sounded like it could be similar to my issue and the first doctor (actually a Pysicians Assistant) told me about a surgery for it. But I decided to get a second opinion from the surgeon himself and he said that particular surgery had a horrible success rate and recommended against it.


So then, what did the surgeon recommend for your knee? The surgeon I'm seeing is good. He's actually one who has pioneered certain surgeries that have become commonplace in today's joint repairs. I have faith in his ability. And he fully admits that he doesn't want to have to do the surgery; hopes the arthroscopic and therapy will help them realign and ease the tension on the cartilage. Yep, I'm good with that.
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So then, what did the surgeon recommend for your knee? The surgeon I'm seeing is good. He's actually one who has pioneered certain surgeries that have become commonplace in today's joint repairs. I have faith in his ability. And he fully admits that he doesn't want to have to do the surgery; hopes the arthroscopic and therapy will help them realign and ease the tension on the cartilage. Yep, I'm good with that.

Just working with PT to strengthen muscles to compensate and avoiding things that are bound to aggravate it (like stairs and running, for example).

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Sounds like you have a few "issues", Z.  Hope everything gets solved, eventually.  Getting old kinda sucks, sometimes.  Crap wears out!   :(

 

The good doctor thing is really important.  I hope I have a good orthopedic surgeon.  I like him and he has done several surgeries on me with success, but you never know for sure.  If you know you have a really good one, then I would do what he says but I would also ask about any alternatives.  I put off knee surgery on the advice of one doctor and then suffered recurring problems and pain for years before I went to another guy who said, "yeah, that thing is torn and we need to operate".  After the operation and rehab, my knee was like new and gave me no more problems.  I should never have listened to the first doctor, but I guess he was being cautious.  Anyway, sometimes I think it is better to go ahead and get it scoped or whatever than to put up with more problems in the future just in the name of erring on the "safe" side.   

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50 IS a young whipper-snapper to me!  

Geezer.

 

Great ride report, Zealot...does feel good to push like that..and to catch someone is icing on the cake.

 

Best of luck on the knee and other issues.

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Geezer.
 
Great ride report, Zealot...does feel good to push like that..and to catch someone is icing on the cake.
 
Best of luck on the knee and other issues.


Yes, it does indeed feel good to push hard! When I ride alone I always give chase to other riders when the opportunity presents itself. :-)

Thanks for the well wishes!
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Sounds like you have a few "issues", Z. Hope everything gets solved, eventually. Getting old kinda sucks, sometimes. Crap wears out! :(

The good doctor thing is really important. I hope I have a good orthopedic surgeon. I like him and he has done several surgeries on me with success, but you never know for sure. If you know you have a really good one, then I would do what he says but I would also ask about any alternatives. I put off knee surgery on the advice of one doctor and then suffered recurring problems and pain for years before I went to another guy who said, "yeah, that thing is torn and we need to operate". After the operation and rehab, my knee was like new and gave me no more problems. I should never have listened to the first doctor, but I guess he was being cautious. Anyway, sometimes I think it is better to go ahead and get it scoped or whatever than to put up with more problems in the future just in the name of erring on the "safe" side.

I agree with all this. But I always hope to start anything medical with the least invasive methods.

And yeah, aging has it's challenges. My mom used to say, "growing older isn't for the faint of heart!"
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Sounds like old farts showing off.  Like when I rode past all the folks walking their bikes up the hills in the heat and humidity on GOBA this year.


I loved that story!!! And not really 'showing off', more simply proving to ourselves that there's still fire in the belly. ;-)

And yeah, it was a little showing off for my wife. I still like to impress her. :-D
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And is it improving?? How does it affect your cycling?

Typically it doesn't affect cycling much. If anything cycling helps it. It's the things that put pressure to the knee that give me problems. It's also lately starting to work problems into other areas. I've been seeing PT now for a tweaked back, which is now looking to be due to weakened core on left side because of the knee.

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