My Story, the Finale

Physical therapists are a lot like new mothers: They get excited over the teensiest feats. I got a congratulations when I learn to walk without a limp, lifted five pounds while doing an incline squat, or biked for 10 minutes without pain. Dr. Hotshot’s physical therapist did more for my knee than any doctor had before her. She showed me how to work the muscles that support the knee and used a cold laser to tame my knees’ inflammation and the painful Baker’s cysts that popped up just for fun. And she introduced me to the e-stim machine.

The electric stimulation machine looks like a contraption Jack Bauer would use on some suspected terrorist in order to save the world from total obliteration. Tell me where the bomb is! he would shout, sticking the four adhesive squares to the bad guy’s skin. I said, tell me! He would power up the device, and crank it to some crazy level like 15. People’s lives are on the line! he’d yell before the machine let out a series of zap-buzz-zaps. Once I got a unit of my own, I started zapping myself every night, sometimes for hours.

Things were going all perfect with physical therapy, and I really thought I was making headway, but I was wrong. According to my insurance company, my knee wasn’t healing fast enough. They wouldn’t pay for any more of my allotted physical therapy. (Shame on you, United HealthCare.)

I moped into Dr. Hotshot’s office for advice, but he admitted he didn’t have much say in whether I was making progress or not. Those insurance companies don’t like to ask the doctors. I paid for a few more physical therapy sessions out of pocket, but then I started to go broke so I went with Dr. Hotshot’s next idea: a cortisone injection. At the time, the cortisone injection was the most painful treatment I had experienced. I treated my left knee first to see if the magical liquid would work, but weeks after the injection I felt the same.

Dejected, I read up a treatment called prolotherapy, located someone in my area experienced in the treatment, and got two rounds of injections. That, at the time, was the most painful thing I had experienced.

When I didn’t notice a huge difference in my knee post-prolotherapy, my doctor suggested platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections. At the end of July, I got the injections—the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. (I’ve never given birth. So there.) My knee was worthless for a couple of weeks, and a month after I still couldn’t fully work out at the gym. But then a miracle happened. During week seven, I started to feel better.

I still have on and off days, but I believe the PRP is working. I hope. And that’s why I’m getting my second round of injections tomorrow.

Well, that’s my story—though it’s not over yet.

Here’s what I bet: Plenty of people have stories about their personal pain that can help newbies or longtime sufferers still looking for answers. What’s your story?