Looking for someone with a similar experience
Hi everyone, I’ve been reading your posts for a while trying to wrap my head around this procedure.
As I have a very specific case, I’d like to hear if anyone went through something similar and the outcomes. I’d like to know if I can still dream about having a pseudo-normal life again or if I just have to wait for the inevitable to happen: knee replacement. I’m only in my mid-30s.
Thanks to all that will take time to read the post, it’s not a short story.
What happened is that I had an immune reaction to the Covid vaccines, it started an inflammatory cascade that made me feel horrible for almost 2 years (constantly fatigued, brain fog, old inflammations flaring for example in the elbow, insomnia, etc.). I’ve always been very active, lifted weights for 15+ years and used to play basketball / I was in the athletics team. One day I went jogging, which I’ve always done and with proper shoes and on a treadmill, and I didn’t feel pain, but at some point I felt one of my knees swelling. By the time I arrived home it was 3x the size and very very painful. In the beginning nobody thought anything of it as the MRI didn’t show anything in particular, cartilages ok, maybe a ligament that was a bit stretched but that’s it. Problem is the pain went on for a few more months, along with other symptoms, to the point that I couldn’t even stand up from a chair. The doctors kept telling me that probably I wasn’t recovering very quickly due to stress. It then affected the other knee in the same way, without me even running or lifting weights.
Well, fast forward to 4-5 months later I found out that I have an identical bilateral damage in the cartilage behind the patella. I should emphasize that the knees were the only part of the body affected by this, in other parts I had occasional inflammations but that’s it. I then got diagnosed with reactive arthritis and started TNFalpha-inhibitors (biologics). Unfortunately I am allergic to all NSAIDs so this was a no-go from the start. This improved a bit the symptoms and stopped damage progression, even though it reached full thickness (4x4mm) by the time I got diagnosed. I’m currently still on immune-suppressants because it seems that Covid triggered chronic viral reactivation that keeps my immune system active (this condition is normally not chronic), but I am working on putting a stop to this. I don’t have anything autoimmune and “self-sustaining”, so no autoantibodies in the blood for instance. The last MRI showed that there is no active inflammation and no damage progression as well.
Despite PT, there are still many things that I cannot do comfortably and I am always in pain. Since the damage is very localized, I thought about regenerative medicine.
For now I’ve only heard from one doctor, and they suggested PRP to stay “on the safe side”. I’ll of course hear other opinions, but I also wanted to know if anyone had this surgery (also MACI + TTO) in a similar condition. I know some autoimmune conditions are a no-go, but this is technically not the case. The only thing that I know is that even without the inflammatory component of my condition, it’s going to degenerate and this is going to lead to knee replacement. I’d like for that to happen as far as possible from now, obviously, as it only lasts 10 years.
Thank you if you made it this far! I’d love to hear your experiences.