by Willma Willis Gore

Having been very healthy throughout my 80 years, I was somewhat surprised when two fingers on my right hand became rather crooked. I’d used my fingers daily at the typewriter for the first 60 years and, in the last 20, at the computer. Since the bent fingers gave me no pain, I dismissed this. My first acquaintance with the term “arthritis” came when the MD diagnosed “mild arthritis.”

My knees began hurting whenever I descended the stairs at my rental on the California Coast. When I visited a dryer climate in Arizona, the knees were much more comfortable–so I moved to Sedona, Arizona. When I checked in with my first AZ doctor, I told him that my knees hurt on the California Coast but felt much better in Arizona.

He didn’t require an x-ray and I did not press the matter. However, I had a fall, banging my left knee against a marble step. The resulting bruise was large and the knee very painful. MD ordered an x-ray. “You have severe arthritis in both knees,” he declared with apparent surprise. Since I had not really complained earlier, even though my knees always hurt when I descended stair steps, I asked him if knee replacement were necessary or an option.

He assigned me to an Osteopathy specialist who x-rayed and found a “hairline fracture of the left knee cap.” He ordered a Velcro-closing soft cast which I was to wear day and night. I learned to manage this, and after two months I was “cast-free.” Even though the x-rays showed “severe arthritis” in both knees, both specialist and primary care MD said “no knee replacement unless you are in severe pain.”

After a month-long trip back to California, my right knee was “undependable” on my return. That is, when I got up in the night, or out of bed in the morning, I had to test putting my weight on the right leg to make sure it was “there” for me, and the slightest twisting movement hurt. I checked it out with another “bone” MD. His x-rays confirmed “severe arthritis in both knees.”

However, he had a plan: First a cortisone shot to relieve the discomfort in the right knee—not the one with the healed kneecap. The shot relieved all discomfort. I was to return in a month which I did but still had no pain in that knee.

The next step in the plan—when I need it–will be three weekly injections of an artificial cartilage called Synvisc which apparently lasts three or more months, cushioning the bones that have begun to rub together as a result of the loss of natural cartilage—typical of arthritis. Now at age 84, neither the MD nor I feel it is yet time for Synvisc.

As long as my legs carry me easily on a 15 minute walk each morning, I will get along without further remedies but am happy to know that the new bone specialist is willing to provide me with the Synvisc when I need it—rather than knee replacement which would hospitalize me. The follow-up would be long sessions in therapy, which I can happily do without.

Willma Willis Gore is a full-time writer and writing group leader in Sedona, Arizona, which she says is ‘wonderful’ for her arthritis.

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