Ugh

[fredericks]

Yesterday I went to see the orthopedist about my much resolved leg pain. I know I walked in defensive, but I knew what I was going to be told: one, we do surgeries here and so I can only recommend surgery, and two, you need to lose weight. Which, yes, fuck you very much. The surgery part was more straightforward - my second surgery left me with a number of screws and two long plates in the front of my tibia, with an opening of bone between the two plates. This makes it more likely for me to break along the opening of bone. And if such break were to occur I'd be sort of fucked, because they'd have to remove some screws, leaving holes in my bone.

But we didn't discuss worst-case scenarios (i.e. what would be the logical steps to take surgically if I did end up with a fracture, seeing as I've been feeling intermittent leg pain), because I mentioned the swelling that occurs to my bilateral knees with activity and he got up on the "losing weight" horse. Which, I know, joints and added weight, blah blah blah. But the belief always seems to be that I'm sitting on my ass eating Bon-Bons when I know I'm more goddamn active than a lot of folks out there. Doc recommended low-impact activities like the elliptical and I had to roll my eyes and stop him right there to tell him that low-impact is all I do (outside of my brief foray into running) and my knees still blow up like Stay-Puffs at the end of the day. Why wouldn't you inquire as to what activities I am doing before you make recommendations, huh? Then he said I should start swimming because, and I quote "if you can get one mile of laps in a day, three days a week, it will help get your heart rate up and get your weight down." Note that at this appt they did not check my BP, HR, or temp. Love it.

I relayed most of my visit to sternel, who I ended up grabbing lunch with afterward, and she inquired as to what doctors ask skinny people who complain of bilateral knee swelling after low-impact activity. I'm thinking they probably just tell them to take NSAIDs, do blood draws, and schedule them for surgical intervention. I mean, what irked the most is that there was no inquiry as to my current habits, prior weight loss, nothing, just the "oh, you're overweight, you need to lose weight" bit that happens more often than I care to acknowledge.

So my plan is to keep gingerly continuing with my activity, join a swim class (because I *have* been looking for an activity that will tone upper and lower body, seeing as I tend to get complacent as all hell on the cardio machines) and see how my knees and leg hold out. And if the problem persists I'm going to have to find another doctor. Maybe a rheumatologist this time around.

Comments

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

I've (re)gained about twenty pounds since you saw me, to be fair. But my knees were going crazy even then, which is part of the reason why I backed off my intense cardio workout schedule. He didn't really care very much when I told him that, that's when he threw out the whole swimming workout idea.

I knew he'd be somewhat oblivious when I read his profile page and it emphasized he was a lettered varsity athlete and he was all about working with sports people blah blah blah. I'd still held out hope. Completely dashed.