Ortho visit who knew about NSAIDS dangers!

Last week I went to my ortho because of knee issues.  I have lost 64 pounds and walking up and down the steps have gotten much better but the damage to my knees won't go away on its own.
Turns out it is arthritis and will need knee replacements within 5 years. 
The good part was as soon as I told him I had RNY he said no NSAIDS for you.  I did not even have to explain it to him.  I was given some excercises to strength the gluts which he said should help with the knee issues.  Losing weight is always his first suggestion and he was happy to hear I am well on my way with that.

There are some doctors who "keep current" with wt loss surgery patient needs.  I know my wife's Kaiser doctor said Kaiser was making a real effort to make sure all of their doctors around here (so. Calif.) knew what medications would cause issues for RNY patients.  If you look at the TV commercials for Celebrex or other NSAID products, there are a long list of possible side effects.  One this type of medication always lists is possible bleeding ulcers, and these commercials are made for the general public. DAVE

I am also looking at having to have my knees replaced (one much sooner than the other, although I am stalling on both of them) because of severe arthritis. I expected that losing 185 pounds would make a huge difference in my pain (especially since so many people who had surgery before me mentioned that their knee pain was completely gone after losing the weight), but it only helped a little...  bone on bone hurts regardless of your weight... as you said, the damage is permanent. At least the damage is not increasing any more becasue of the excess weight!

Yes, there are some doctors, especially those who deal with inflammatory issues, who are aware of the problems with NSAIDs (both for the general population and RNYers).

Lora

I don't know if you are near a big teaching hospital but there is something new out for younger folks like us and also athletes.  It is a cartilage tranplant.  I don't know all the particulars.  I saw it on my local news from a NY hospital and they said it is something that is being done on younger people that have no cartilage left but the rest of the joint is okay.  It has a very high success rate with much better mobility afterwards and less recovery time.

Something you might want to look into.

Really?!?  Cool.  I will definitely do some research on that!  It wouldn't help with my worst knee -- the xray looks like a craggy mountain range with all the bone spurs -- but would definitely help with the other one.  Thanks for the info!

Lora