An Appointment With My Family Doctor
[ Thursday August 31st 2017 at 12:55 pm ]
I've had another appointment with my family doctor. It was helpful to me.
I started off by inquiring how my family doctor reached the conclusion of severe tendinitis. I disagree with this diagnosis. The MRI imaging from June 2017 stated 'mild' and showed numerous other issues with my knee joints. I asked this because I need to know how to present myself in the future in a way that dismantles and undermines a tendinitis diagnosis.
We went over the bone scan imaging report. The phone message my family doctor left me with the results of this was a summary. I misunderstood what he was describing. The bone scan had no additional information to offer about my knee joints. It documented (almost to the nth degree) arthritis in my spine. It is obvious the long term response to this is ongoing exercise. This will give me the best quality of life. This also means I will never have a full recovery. With the pain I feel in my spine I am not surprised by this development.
Then we talked about what I want to have happen next. I am being referred to the surgeon who went out of his way to help me in 2011 - 2012. This particular surgeon was instrumental in getting my hip treatment back on track. I am hoping he is open to listening to what I have to say about my knee joints. I am at the point of planning knee replacement surgery out of the country. My question for this surgeon is if any type of injection will bring some relief. I've read enough to know this isn't going to fix the challenges I have. In part injections into my hips were performed prior to them being replaced so we had confidence in the hip replacement surgery. This is the same context in which I am interested in pursuing knee injections.
I made one request of my family doctor for this referral. It is that my family doctor indicate that I have been willing to participate in the recovery and have not sold myself out for using a power wheelchair. I didn't have my hip joints replaced just to continue using a wheelchair. I need the surgeon who will be assessing me to not have any prejudice when speaking with me.
The option of stem cell transplant into knees is now available in Ontario Canada. My family doctor doesn't think it is an effective option because my knee joints aren't bad enough. However my family doctor also acknowledges he isn't an authority on this. I am not sure if this is something I want to pursue or not. I need to feel the effect a knee injection would have on me so I could have confidence a stem cell transplant is targeting the right areas in my knee joints.
Finally my family doctor did the new prescriptions for my pain control. These are being held on file at the pharmacy until I need these medications.
All in all I am happy the appointment went as well as could be expected.