Bad knees

I have terrible arthritis in both knees—“bone on bone,” as they say. You can see the bone-on-bone part in the photo below (as pointed out in my poorly-drawn arrows).

The odd thing is that my knees don’t bother me much. Walking isn’t painful, so I’m not having those joints replaced—not yet, anyway.

In 2021 The New York Times reported that, contrary to popular belief, knee cartilage can repair itself. (But what if there’s no cartilage to repair?) Anyhow, according to the researchers, weight-bearing activities like running and walking “…squeeze the cartilage in the knee joint like a sponge, expelling waste and then drawing in a fresh supply of nutrient- and oxygen-rich fluid with each step. Instead of an inert shock-absorber doomed to get brittle and eventually fail with age, cartilage is a living tissue that adapts and thrives with regular use.”

The idea of my knees "thriving" at this point is pretty ludicrous. Still, I think it's important to strengthen the muscles that keep my knees stable and to stiffen the tendons and ligaments around the joint. To achieve this, the experts recommend 10 to 15 repetitions of squats and lunges. Are you kidding me?! There’s no way I could do squats and lunges. But maybe there’s an alternative based on another Times article titled “Stronger Muscles in 3 Seconds a Day.”

In a small study researchers found that test subjects who raised a weighted lever (a dumbbell would also work) then lowered it slowly once a day five times a week for one month increased their bicep strength by 12 percent! So here’s my idea: you lie in bed and flex the muscles around your knee by pushing down on the mattress with the back of your knee (leg straight) while pulling up on your thigh muscles. When I remember to do it, I do it about 20 times with each knee. It takes just a few seconds. I have no idea if it does any good, but it can’t hurt.

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