OPINION: Dear Orthopedic Surgeon, –
November 28, 2019 – I’m not overly sensitive to pain. On the contrary, I’m that patient who didn’t go to the orthopedist months ago, when my left knee first started aching and throbbing. I kept exercising, assuming I had early-onset arthritis because of all those marathons. I didn’t even go when I felt an egg-sized lump in the back of my knee. (For the curious: A Baker’s cyst, named for William Morrant Baker, the 19th-century British surgeon who first described it, is one of your body’s responses to a knee injury.)
The pain isn’t unbearable, most of the time. It starts throbbing after I’ve walked a few blocks and, sometimes, it’s a dull all-around ache. It’s enough to wake me up if I sleep with my knees bent. Eventually, it became strong enough to stop me from normal exercise. So I made an appointment. Got the MRI. And the diagnosis. Now, I’m icing. Resting. Taking ibuprofen and naproxen. Except I’m not supposed to take ibuprofen or naproxen the week before surgery, because they are blood thinners.
