I'm 42, a female, have a neuromuscular disorder called Charcot Marie Tooth disease, osteopenia from the CMT, and osteoarthritis in my knees mostly (I'm a lot of fun huh?!). Other than those problems I'm healthy. My orthopedic surgeon, after 3 failed surgeries from what started as a fairly minor injury, did a patellectomy last year in an effort to relieve my knee pain that was (and is still) pretty severe. In addition to the pain, the patella was not tracking. Although there were only microfractures and other osteoarthritic changes to the patella. Anyway, it hasn't really worked. As I said earlier, my knee is still quite painful and now a new symptom. My knee completely collapses without warning. Often I fall because I really have no time to catch myself. I don't know it's giving out until I'm half way to the floor. I have been doing PT exercises for almost a year now in an effort to strenghten the quadriceps. The doc was hoping weak quads was the cause of the knee collapse. No luck. I now wear a KAFO in an effort to lessen the falls. That's fun , especially when it's 100 degrees outside! Anyway, now my ortho doc (unless the knee greatly improves) is talking about a total knee replacement in about a year. My other knee is in desperate need of a total because of severe osteoarthritis that has chewed away at my joint so much that I'm bone on bone now. My knee is constantly swollen and from time to time has about 60-70 cc's of fluid drawn off of it. And of course the pain is almost constant and mostly severe.
Sorry for the long bio.
My questions are, do you have a thought about why my knee is giving away? Even when I don't bump it or take a wrong step or anything like that that would cause it to collapse. Secondly, do you know of any new prosthesis' that are longer lasting? All of the orthopedic docs that I have seen, and I have seen about five I think, all the way from San Antonio to Austin and in between, tell me that I'm too young to have a knee replacement. I understand the logic in the reason (and it's been a while since anyone's said I'm too young, for anything! I kinda like that!). But the fact remain that both of my knees are killing me, and one of my knees keeps sending me south. Maybe there's a new knee out there that lasts longer. My quality of life right now isn't good, and I can't get any of the doctors to listen to me. And lastly, this is unfair of me to ask, but do you think that just maybe a total knee would stop the knee collapse?
Thanks so much for your help.
Kelly