Knee Pain – Appropriate Treatment?

The New York Times recently published an article about “What I Wish I’d Known About My Knees”

The natural question to ask is… are we are being too aggressive with knee pain surgery? Or are we are being too conservative with knee pain issues? The concepts presented in the article is nothing new that we all haven’t heard before. However, maybe Orthopaedic Surgeons are being too aggressive with surgery?

New York Times – Knee Pain

Read more

I was recently told by a new patient to my practice that “all Orthopaedic Surgeons want to do is operate and cut, especially for knee pain.” I tried to explain to my patient that not all of us want to operate and usually reserve that for when all other measures have failed. It is the fundamental basis for surgical practice across the spectrum is to exhaust all conservative measures first before moving on to more aggressive interventions. There are some out there that do not share this same viewpoint into their surgical practices.

Advice

If you do happen to see someone at a surgical practice that wants to operate immediately or even “I have an opening this afternoon”, it is good advice to slow down and carefully consider why they want to take you to surgery so fast.

Orthopaedic surgery has evolved so much in the past decade, that we are constantly weighing the risks and benefits of each of surgery. The asks the questions as to whether we are causing more harm than actually doing good.

Summary

The bullet pointed suggestions towards the end of this article are good points for any patient that suffers from knee pain related issues. It is always recommended to try simple things first.

1.  Losing Weight
2.  Exercising – low impact
3.  Proper Nutrition
4.  Minimizing the amount of medications to help overcome
5.  Ask lots of questions of your provider
6.  Work as a team – be comfortable about the plan together