Saving My Knees: How I Proved My Doctors Wrong and Beat Chronic Knee Pain by Richard Bedard Read Free Book Online

benefit just turns out to be the “placebo effect,” that may not be so bad either. The mind can be a very powerful force in healing.
    A month after seeing Dr. Chiu, as the daily glucosamine pills failed to alleviate my pain, I decided to get a second opinion about my knees, in case Chiu had overlooked something. That’s how I came to pick Dr. Simpson more or less randomly from a directory of orthopedists in Bloomberg’s managed care network.
    Before our meeting, I mused about my chances of getting a good doctor. Optimistically, Simpson could be a young guy, full of verve, schooled in the latest thinking on knee injuries. He could be bright, open-minded, and dynamic. He could be a budding superstar, using this network as a stepping stone to launch his own practice. Pessimistically, Simpson could be a tired hack.
    Within minutes of entering his office, I realized with a sinking heart I had Simpson number two. He had the dull, bored look of a bureaucrat who just happened to be wearing a lab coat. He examined my knees, much as Dr. Chiu did, but found nothing abnormal. His response to my complaint of knee pain was basically a shrug. He had no good advice or insights to share. I wasn’t a candidate for surgery—at least not yet.
    Dr. Simpson was the one who stiffened when I challenged his diagnosis of patellofemoral pain syndrome. He must have sensed my frustration. Two doctors had now told me my knees were basically normal. So why did they hurt so much? They felt far from normal. I left feeling despondent.
    Meanwhile, I was becoming weary of the nebulous “patellofemoral pain syndrome” verdict. I wanted some hard information on what my knee joints looked like. Was bad cartilage really my problem or could it be something else? Standard X-rays don’t depict soft tissue, but magnetic resonance imaging does. An MRI employs a powerful magnetic field to draw a picture in black and white and shades of gray. It can identify fluid inside a joint, tears in a ligament, or torn or thinning cartilage.
    Dr. Simpson didn’t support doing an MRI, so that brought me to Dr. Song. My first impression of his practice was that he appeared to have adapted well to the age of managed care. His waiting area was full of patients who briskly moved in and out of his office. When my turn came, I entered the cramped quarters and sat next to his desk. He struck me as a rather nervous and edgy man. He didn’t maintain eye contact well, and when he did look at you, it was a bit askance, as if you weren’t to be trusted.
    Dr. Song didn’t do much of a knee exam at all. He listened as I recounted my history and explained my reasons for wanting an MRI, then approved it without objection. On September 6, 2007, I underwent the procedure. The hardest thing was simply keeping each knee perfectly still during the long scans. When the results came back, they finally supplied me with some answers.
    The MRI revealed chondromalacia, mainly of the patellae, but no other issues. So I did have bad cartilage, though the report described my condition as “mild.” That puzzled me. Of course without an invasive procedure known as an arthroscopy, it was impossible to know how bad the tissue really was. From the constant pain signals, I surmised that something traumatic had happened to create such problems.
    I would return to Dr. Song later, when my difficulty sitting at work became too severe to ignore. He even agreed to support my first experiment to save my knees. He signed off on my plan to work half-time for three months to try to strengthen the joints. I will always be grateful for that; many other doctors would have refused.
    But he was clearly uncomfortable. At one point he said, “I don’t want to get between you and your company.” That remark threw me off balance. Wasn’t his main responsibility to heal his patient? If he thought my plan made sense, he should support it. If not, he shouldn’t. Then later, I wondered if he was reacting to the pressures