I’ll start with some history on the matter. During my second year in Washington, DC I started feeling some discomfort in both of my knees. At the time, during the year 2000, I decided it wasn’t too big a deal and kept playing through it, mostly basketball and softball. About 6 months later both knees were still causing me pain. As such, I went to see an orthopedic surgeon. The results of an MRI noted a slight sprain in my ACL. The doctor told me to stay away from exercise for 6 months. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but looking back I wish I had gotten a second opinion. It turns out the diagnosis wasn’t even close to the actual problems going on in my knee.

During early 2001 I moved back home to NY as part of a job change. Later that year, with both knees getting worse, I went to see another doctor. This time the doctor noted that I should start some physical therapy as both my knees were out of alignment. This was due to the outer thigh muscles being stronger than the inner thigh muscles. About 3 months and numerous physical therapy sessions later things didn’t get much better. However, the doctor was correct; my knees were out of alignment. The problem was he didn’t do enough to look into additional problems.

During late 2002 I moved to Denver as part of a requested move within the company I work for.Shortly after moving my knees went sour. Less than 2 months after the move to Denver I was under the knife to get my right knee “cleaned”. At the time it was supposed to be a simple arthroscopic procedure with a recovery period of 4-5 days.

It wasn’t until meeting with the doctor the following day that I was provided with results of the surgery. I was told that a procedure called microfracture was completed as part of the surgery. The procedure was required due to there being little or no cartilage in my knee. Use this link for more information on this procedure — http://www.steadman-hawkins.com/knee_microfracture/overview.asp.

So, here we are over three years after the first surgery and I’m due for another surgery, this time on my left knee. To be honest, I’m still not sure if the right knee surgery was a success or not. For the most part it has lessoned the pain in my right knee, but I haven’t had an opportunity to truly test with the continued pain in my left knee. Information on my recent doctors visits leading up to the surgery will be included in the next blog entry.